Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/43

 SUPREME COURT AND THE UTAH EIGHTHOURS' LAW 27

defendant to be imprisoned in the county jail for a term of fifty- seven days, or until the fine and costs were paid. The case was immediately appealed, under habeas corpus proceedings, to the supreme court of Utah, and the law was sustained. The case was then carried to the federal supreme court, which handed down its decision on February 28, Justices Peckham and Brewer dissenting. The law was again sustained. The position of the supreme court of the United States was defined as to the consti- tutionality of statutory restrictions upon the hours of labor of adults ; and as to the powers and duties, in general, of the states with regard to the health and welfare of employes as such. Although the decisions of the supreme courts of Nebraska, Illinois, and Colorado are referred to indirectly only, they are all comprehensively overruled. But the great, the incalculable serv- ice which is rendered by this decision is its rout and destruction of the bogy-man with which state supreme courts have for years been terrifying themselves, and each other, and timorous legis- latures, under the name of the fourteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States. Once for all, it is convin- cingly laid down by this decision that state legislation restricting the hours of labor of employes in occupations injurious to the health will not be annulled by the federal supreme court on grounds of conflict with the fourteenth amendment to the con- stitution of the United States.

The decision is so coherent, so closely knit, that injustice to it is done by quoting isolated parts of it by way of illus- trating the position taken by the court. Yet, in default of space for reproducing the whole of this humane and enlight- ened utterance, it must suffice to give some of the character- istic dicta. Says the court: "The constitution of the United States, which is necessarily and to a large extent inflexible, and exceedingly difficult of amendment, should not be so coTistnied as to deprive the states of the power to so amend their laws as to make titem conform to the wishes of the citizens as they may deem best for the public welfare, without bringing them into conflict with the supreme law of the land." And again the court says : " An examination of the classes of cases arising under the fourteenth amendment will