Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/49

 SUPREME COURT AND THE UTAH EIGHT-HOURS' LAW 33

cates of social amelioration by constitutional methods seems to be briefly as follows :

1. Legislation limiting the hours of labor of employes in occupations injurious to the health will not be annulled by the federal supreme court on the ground of conflict with the four- teenth amendment to the constitution of the United States.

2. The short working day may be established by statute in the various states for all those occupations which are, in them- selves, injurious to the health of the employes; arid it rests with the state legislature to decide tvhich are such occupatio7ts.

3. Legislation limiting the hours of labor of employes need not be restricted to women and minors, as has been the usage hitherto; the question being, henceforth, not as to the age or sex of the employes, but as to the nature of the occupation.

4. It is desirable to provide for such legislation by inserting in the state constitution (wherever there is not already such an enabling article) a provision similar, either to the general article of the Massachusetts constitution, or the special article providing for the rights of labor which forms the distinguishing character- istic of the new Utah state constitution.

It is also to be remembered that these things do not occur spontaneously ; they are the fruits of long and patient labor. Adverse decisions in many states have cumbered the earth with error, discouragement, apathy, if not actual antagonism, to this sane and hopeful, though slow and difficult, method of social amelioration. And the present decision does but open the way, by sustaining a statute affecting a few hundred men in a state not highly developed industrially, and by affording a precedent, national in its scope, for doing over again successfully work which, in many states, has once been done in vain by the patient effort of the labor organizations. A long campaign lies before these organizations before the older states can be brought to the point thus early reached by Utah. State constitutional conven- tions must be held ; state constitutions must be amended ; legis- latures must be induced to act ; state supreme courts must be brought to follow this decision of the federal supreme court ;