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 LIMITATION OF HOURS OF LABOR

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LIMITATION OF HOURS OF LABOR AND THE FEDERAL SUPREME COURT BY PROFESSOR ERNST FREUND WHEN the provision of the Labor law nicipalities, or by contractors engaged on of New York, limiting the hours of public or municipal works, to eight per day, employment in bakeries to sixty in any one had been upheld in Kansas in 1899 and 1902 week or ten in any one day, came for en (Re Dalton, 61 Kan. 275, States. Atkin, 64 forcement before the courts of that state in- Kan. 174), while a similar law was held un the case of the People v. Lochner, the ju constitutional in Ohio in 1902 (Cleveland v. dicial decisions on the validity of legislation, Construction Co., 67 0. 197); but in 1903 fixing maximum numbers of hours of labor the Kansas decision was affirmed by the in industrial employments, stood as follows: Supreme Court of the United States (Atkin In 1876, the statutory restriction of v. Kansas, 191 U. S. 207). While in many of the decisions that were women labor in factories to sixty hours per week had been sustained in Massachusetts adverse to the legislation, the argument of (Com. v. Hamilton Mfg. Co., 120 Mass. 383). the equal protection of the laws had con In 1880, an ordinance of San Francisco re siderable, if not controlling weight with the quiring the cessation of labor on the part of courts, the constitutional right of liberty bakers from Saturday evening to Sunday was in all of them emphasized; and even the morning, was held to be invalid as special courts, which supported the acts, were by legislation (ex. p. Westerfield, 556 Cal. 550). no means inclined to surrender the right of In 1894, an act of Nebraska of 1891, estab the individual to contract for work and lishing an eight-hour day for all classes of services to the unlimited discretion of the mechanics, servants, and laborers, excepting legislature; they merely conceded the power those engaged in farm or domestic labor, of the legislature to interfere by regulation was declared unconstitutional (Low v. Rees of hours, where long continued work might Printing Co., 41 Nebr. 127), while in 1902, a be reasonably believed to be detrimental to statute of that state similar to that of Mas the health of the employees. It was only sachusetts first mentioned (applying to with regard to public works and contracts women only), was sustained (Wenham v. that the Supreme Court of Kansas, and, State, 65 Nebr. 394). In 1895, an act 0f following it, the Supreme Court of the U. S. Illinois of 1893, forbidding the employment had admitted the legislative power to be of females in factories for more than eight absolute. hours in any one day, or forty-eight hours in In view of the decisions mentioned, it any one week, was held invalid (Ritchie v. can not be said that the courts of New York, People, 155 Ill. 98). In 1896, a statute of in pronouncing upon the validity of the Utah, limiting the hours of labor in mines or baker's law, were confronted by a clear pre underground workings or in smelting or re ponderance of authority. Even consider fining establishments, to eight per day, was ing the decision in Holden v. Hardy to be sustained (Holden v. Hardy, 14 Utah 71), directly in point, they were free to depart and the decision affirmed by the Federal from the construction given by the Supreme Supreme Court in 1898 (169 U. S. 366); Court of the United States to the Fourteenth notwithstanding this, in 1899, a similar act Amendment, and to interpret the similar or of Colorado was declared unconstitutional identical provisions of the state Constitu (Re Morgan, 26 Colo. 415). A law limiting tion less favorably to the claims of legisla the hours of employment by state or mu tive power.