Protective Labor Legislation: With Special Reference to Women in the State of New York

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Columbia University, 1925 - 463 pages

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Page 65 - That woman's physical structure and the performance of maternal functions place her at a disadvantage in the struggle for subsistence is obvious.
Page 36 - But the fact that both parties are of full age, and competent to contract, does not necessarily deprive the state of the power to interfere, where the parties do not stand upon an equality, or where the public health demands that one party to the contract shall be protected against himself.
Page 66 - The limitations which this statute places upon her contractual powers, upon her right to agree with her employer as to the time she shall labor, are not imposed solely for her benefit, but also largely for the benefit of all.
Page 72 - No minor under the age of eighteen years, and no female shall be employed, permitted or suffered to work in any factory in this state before six o'clock in the morning, or after nine o'clock in the evening of any day...
Page 70 - is free to recognize degrees of harm and it may confine its restrictions to those classes of cases where the need is deemed to be clearest.
Page 35 - The enactment does not profess to limit the hours of all workmen, but merely those who are employed in underground mines, or in the smelting, reduction, or refining of ores or metals. These employments when too long pursued the legislature has judged to be detrimental to the health of the employees, and, so long as there are reasonable grounds for believing that this is so, its decision upon this subject cannot be reviewed by the Federal courts.
Page 44 - I think that the word liberty in the Fourteenth Amendment is perverted when it is held to prevent the natural outcome of a dominant opinion, unless it can be said that a rational and fair man necessarily would admit that the statute proposed would infringe fundamental principles as they have been 22 understood by the traditions of our people and our law.
Page 21 - Under the powers inherent in every sovereignty, a government may regulate the conduct of its citizens toward each other, and, when necessary for the public good, the manner in which each shall use his own property.
Page 65 - This is especially true when the burdens of motherhood are upon her. Even when they are not, by abundant testimony of the medical fraternity continuance for a long time on her feet at work, repeating this from day to day, tends to injurious effects upon the body, and as healthy mothers are essential to vigorous offspring, the physical well-being of woman becomes an object of public interest and care in order to preserve the strength and vigor of the race.
Page 36 - The legislature has also recognized the fact, which the experience of legislators in many States has corroborated, that the proprietors of these establishments and their operatives do not stand upon an equality, and that their interests are, to a certain extent, conflicting.

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