Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/80

46 46 HARVARD LAW REVIEW The majority opinion may be divided into two main phases. The first is devoted to showing that the statute is not a regulation of interstate comjnerce at all. The second rather assumes that the statute deals with interstate commerce, but nevertheless is invalid because of its necessary effect in regulating "hoxurs of labor of children in factories and mines within the States, a purely state authority." The concluding paragraph combines both phases, as follows: "Thus the act in a twofold sense is repugnant to the Constitution. It not only transcends the authority delegated to Congress over commerce but also exerts a power as to a purely local matter to which the federal authority does not extend." The Proposition that the Statute is not a Regulation OF Interstate Commerce The words of the statute are entitled to attention. The statute provides "That no producer, manufacturer, or dealer shall ship or deliver for shipment in interstate or foreign commerce any article or commodity" having the quahties specified. In the Dagenhart Case the articles were cotton goods produced in a factory emplojdng children. Section 6 of the act is definitive: "The term 'ship or deliver for shipment in interstate or foreign com- merce' as used in this act means to transport or to ship or deliver for shipment from any State or Territory or the District of Columbia to or through any other State or Territory or the District of Columbia or to any foreign country." Thus the act does not by its terms regulate manufacture or hoiu"s of labor or transportation within a state. As the dissenting justices said: "The statute confines itself to prohibiting the carriage of certain goods in interstate or foreign commerce." been said that such an all-embracing prohibition was merely a penalty upon the manufacturer who employed child labor, was not necessary to the accomplishment of the legislative purpKJse to prevent the interstate movement of products of child labor and hence not within the authority of such cases as Otis v. Parker, 187 U. S. 606 (1903); Purity Extract Co. v. Lynch, 226 U. S. 192, 201 (1912). These cases hold that, so far as necessary for proper enforcement, the means adopted to abolish the evil aimed at may include transactions innocent of themselves.