Evening star., 1941-02-03
Act
|sUphe|d by
SupremeCourt
Government Loses
In Ruling on A. F. L.
Antitrust Case
BY ]. A. FOX.

The Supreme Court today upheld
the constitutionality of the wage
hour law, designed to put a floor
under wages and ceiling over hours
for more than 100000 workers in
American industry and to outlaw
child labor.
The decision overrules the 5-4 de-
cision of the court in 1918 which
knocked out the Federal Child Labor
Act and apparently makes unnec-
cssary the pending child labor
amendment to the Constitution.
The act is sufficiently definite to
meet constitutional demands. One
who employs persons without con-
forming to the prescribed wage and
hour conditions to work on goods
which he ships or expects to ship
across State lines is warned that
he may be subject to the criminal
provisions of the act" said the opin-
ION announced by Justice Stone.
There was no dissent.
U. S. Loses in A. F. L. Ruling.
The court passed on this vital
New Deal measure shortly after it
handed a sharp setback to the
Government by ruling tnat William
L. Hutcheson, international presi-
dent, and three other officials of the
American Federation of Labor Car
penters' Union could not be prose-
cuted under the Sherman Anti
Trust Act for fostering a strike at
the Annheuser- Busch Brewery in
St. Louis and promoting a national
The case was the outgrowth of a
jurisdictional squabble with the ma
chinists' union, another A. F. of l..
affiliate, over the ALLEGATION of con-
struction work.
The So decision in the labor
union case. read by Justice Frank
furter, reversed the Government in
the first of the cases it has gotten
before the Supreme Court in the
antitrust drive in the building in
dustry. The court upheld the con-
tention of the American Federation
of Labor that unions were protected
from Sherman Act prosecution by
the Clayton and Norris-La Guardia
Acts.
Power Writ Litigation Dismissed.
The court also dismissed litigation
involving an injunction temporarily
restraining Gov. Leon c. Phillips
interfering, by use of troops and a
State court suit, with work on the
S20,0O0,0O0 rand River hydro-elec-
trio project.
Justice Frankfurter wrote this
decision which returned the case
to a three Judge Federal Court at
Tulsa to permit it to enter a fresh
decree" from which State officials
may, if they wish, perfect timely
appeal to the Circuit Court of Ap-
peals."
The decision held that the State
officials did not have right, under
Federal judicial procedure, to ap-
peal directly from the three judge
court to the Supreme Court. No
dissent was announced.
Law Challenged by Cotton Mills.
The wage-hour law was chal-
lenged by the F. w. Darby Lumber
Co. of Statesboro Ga, and group
of Southern cotton mills as an un-
constitutional attempt to invade
the province of the States and to
control production. The cotton
mills also disputed the legality of
wage order issued by the wage-hour
administrator fixing minimum
wage of 3212 cents an hour in the
textile industry.
An indictment charging the Dar-
by company with paying Substan-
dard wages in the production OF
lumber intended for interstate COM
merce was quashed by District
Court for the Southern District OF
Georgia and the Government ap-
pealed. The cotton mills attacking
both the wage order and the pro-
cedure under which it was nego-
tiated unsuccessfully sought to have
the order set aside in Federal Cir
cult Court and then appealed to
the Supreme Court.
while manufacture is not of itself
interstate commerce, the shipment
of manufactured goods interstate
is such commerce and the prohibi-
ton of such shipment by Congress
is indubitably a regulation of the
commerce." said Justice Stone in
first treating the Darby case.
Congress" he continued, follow
ing it's own conception OF public
policy concerning the restrictions
which may appropriately be imposed
on interstate commerce is free to
exclude from the commerce articles
whose use in these States for which
(see SUPREME COURT, Page A-50