"No Minimum Wage"

The Supreme Court has declared the Minimum Wage Law in the District of Columbia unconstitutional by a vote of 5 to 3, one member (Mr. Associate Justice Brandeis) not voting. This sweeping decision threatens the minimum wage laws already established or about to be enacted in several states, including New York, California, Kansas, Oregon, Wisconsin, Washington. It has been generally assumed that if the law is invalid as applied in the District of Columbia similar enactments by state legislatures are also unconstitutional.

Chief Justice Taft, together with Justice Holmes and Justice Sanford, dissented from the majorities' opinion that the law interfered with the right of contract. Mr. Taft insisted that if the majorities' opinion is sound it becomes unconstitutional to regulate working hours or working conditions and that a return to the sweat shop might result. Justice Holmes declared that giving the vote to women did not rob them of the right of protection ; that it had changed the Constitution of the United States, but had not changed the constitution of women.

Justice Brandeis, who refrained from participating, usually votes on the liberal side of questions of a political or industrial nature.

The decision of the court delivered by Justice Sutherland held that the District of Columbia's Minimum Wage Law was a price fixing act and as such an abridgment of the right of contract.

Like the decision declaring the Child Labor Law unconstitutional, the minimum wage decision is repugnant to organized labor. Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, has already issued a vigorous statement on the subject in which he asserted that a tendency of the court was "to decide against humanity in favor of property."