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 SUPREME COURT AND THE UTAH EIGHT-HOURS' LAW 25

(People vs. the Hamilton Manufacturing Company) that the Mas- sachusetts legislature had the power to restrict by statute the hours of labor of adult women employed in factories. The Illinois supreme court, in its decision annulling the Illinois eight-hours' law, had taken occasion to refer to the Massachusetts decision, stating that "it is not in line with the current of authority," and explaining that it could be arrived at only by reason of the " large discretion vested in the legislative branch of the govern- ment." The "large discretion" referred to is contained in the following words of chap, ii, sec. 4, of the constitution of Massa- chusetts : "Full power and authority are hereby given and granted to the said general court, from time to time, to make, ordain, and establish all manner of wholesome and reasonable laws, ordinances, statutes, directions, and instructions, either with penalties or without ; so as the same be not repugnant to this constitution, as they shall judge to be for the good and welfare of this commonwealth, and for the governing thereof."

From the days of this sweeping Massachusetts provision, which took effect October i, 1780, and has remained in force in Massachusetts unchanged to the present day, the tendency has been to reduce the powers of legislatures, both by restrictions inserted in state constitutions and by the interpretation placed upon those constitutions by state supreme courts. Strongest of all has been the use of the fourteenth amendment by the state courts. This tendency to reduce legislative power in the states to zero (degrading the state government to a mere mechanism for laying and collecting taxes for the maintenance of the judiciary, the militia, and the state charities) reached its cul- minating point in the Illinois decision of 1895 (Ritchie vs. the People). How far the pendulum has already swung back toward the position of Massachusetts in 1780 is shown in the action of the people of Utah, in the decision of their supreme court, and in the present decision of the supreme court of the United States.

The people of Utah, instructed by the supreme court of Illinois in 1895, showed by their action in 1896 that they had learned their lesson. For, not content with such sweeping generalities as those of the Massachusetts state constitution, they incorporated