HOURS OF LABOR AND EARNINGS OF INDIVIDUAL WOMEN EMPLOYED
IN SELECTED INDUSTRIES DURING A WEEK OF THE BUSY SEASON—
Continued.
CORSET FACTORY-Coner:lei.

HOURS OF LABOR AND EARNINGS OF INDIVIDUAL WOMEN EMPLOYED IN SELECTED INDUSTRIES DURING A WEEK OF THE BUSY SEASON— Continued.

Neighborhood DEPARTMENT AND RETAIL DRY GOODS STORES-11 ESTABLISHMENTS -Continued.

a Girls work 4 hours on Sunday every six weeks. Average length of Sunday work is added to total hours per week.

Receive each week, in addition to regular wages, a small sum from commission on sales.

Girls work 4 hours every other Sunday. Average length of Sunday work added to total hours per week. d Not reported.

HOURS OF LABOR AND EARNINGS OF INDIVIDUAL WOMEN EMPLOYED IN SELECTED INDUSTRIES DURING A WEEK OF THE BUSY SEASON— Concluded.

NEIGHBORHOOD DEPARTMENT AND RETAIL DRY GOODS STORES-11 ESTABLISHMENTS-Concluded.

a Receive each week, in addition to regular wages, a small sum from commission on sales. These hours were given by the girls in the hearing of the employer. Later they were seen working on nights when store was said to be closed.

Girls work 4 hours one Sunday out of the month. Average length of Sunday work is adde 1 to total hours per week.

LABOR LAWS DECLARED UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

BY LINDLEY D. CLARK, A. M., LL. M.

CLASS OF LAWS CONSIDERED.

The United States Bureau of Labor has, from time to time, beginning with the year 1892, published compilations of the laws of the various States and of the United States relating to the subject of labor. No exact definition of laws of this class has been attempted, nor in the nature of things is such a definition feasible. There are many laws which more or less directly affect the conditions of wageearners, but, inasmuch as they are of general application and relate to and in practice affect other persons equally with wage-earners, such laws can not be specifically included under the head of labor legislation.

In this compilation it is the intention to consider only those provisions of law that in some direct sense affect employers and employees as such, or that determine the rights and obligations of these particular classes. In some instances, however, laws of general application, which were not primarily addressed to the subject of the relations of employers and employees, have been included because in actual effect these laws have been found to concern these classes and their relations in a particular and exceptional way.

Decisions of courts affecting labor have been reproduced in the Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor, beginning with the year 1896, and during the period covered there have come under observation a considerable number of laws and a few city ordinances which the courts have found not to conform to the constitutional tests which, under our form of government, all legislation must meet.

The laws that have been found to be unconstitutional and the grounds for such finding are obviously of value and importance to any complete understanding of the movement for labor legislation and of the limitations within which the movement must necessarily operate. It is the purpose of the present article to gather into a single presentation a summary of the previously published decisions relative to these laws and ordinances, with such others of like nature as a search of the digests has disclosed, the result being, it is believed, a practically complete review of the cases of this class. In all but a very few instances the decisions here noted have been those of courts of last resort of the State in which the law was enacted, or of

the Supreme Court of the United States. Where this rule is departed from the fact will be noted, and these exceptions are in the main cases in which the decision has been accepted as final and no further action attempted under the law. About one hundred and seventyfive decisions are reviewed, besides a number of contrasting and illustrative cases.

BASIS OF LEGISLATIVE ACTION.

It may be premised of all legislation of the general class here considered that it is restrictive in some form or degree of the conduct of the parties to whom it applies, employer or employee, or both; and as a restriction upon the liberty of action and the free use of property that are supposed to inhere in all men alike, the courts require that justification must exist for its enactment. This is found, in general, in what is known as the police power of the State. What this power is, is not a matter of accurate definition inasmuch as it concerns the policy of individual States and is subject to growth and change with changing industrial and social conditions.(")

The police power, in its broadest acceptation, means the general power of a government to preserve and promote the public welfare by prohibiting all things hurtful to the comfort, safety, and welfare of society, and establishing such rules and regulations for the conduct of all persons and the use and management of all property as may be conducive to the public interest. (') It relates to the safety, health, morals, and general welfare of the public. Both property and liberty are held on such reasonable conditions as may be imposed by the governing power of the state in the exercise of this power. () In the case just cited it was said that this power exists in the sovereignty of each State, but is none the less subject to the inquiry whether any particular exercise of it or enactment under it is fair, reasonable, and appropriate, or whether, on the other hand, it is an unreasonable, unnecessary, and arbitrary interference with the right of individuals to their personal liberty. However, not every invasion of the right of liberty or property will be condemned, (d) and it will be left to the legislatures of the States to declare, as the representative of the people, what restrictions, within the constitutional limitations, will be placed on the freedom to contract; and it is laid down by our highest tribunal that, while it is the duty of the courts to guard the constitutional rights of the citizen against merely arbitrary power, it is equally true and imperatively demanded that legislative enactments declaring

a Atkin v. Kansas, 191 U. S. 207, 24 Sup. Ct. 124; Holden e. Hardy, 169 U. 8, 366, 18 Sup. Ct. 383.

b Am. & Eng. Cyc. of Law, vol. 22, p. 916.

Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45, 25 Sup. Ct. 539.

d People ex rel. Williams Engineering, etc., Co. v. Metz, 193 N. Y. 148, 85 NE 1070; Booth v. People, 186 Ill. 43, 57 N. E. 798.