A Dangerous Decision

The Supreme Court Has Aroused Resentment In deciding that the District of Columbia Minimum Wage Law is unconstitutional, the Supreme Court has subjected itself to criticism on two grounds.

The Court has reiterated the opinion that labor is a commodity, and may be disposed of like any other goods. Such an opinion, however, seems to laymen, and even to lawyers, almost a repudiation of the views expressed in Muller against Oregon, in which it was held that a law regulating the hours of employment of women was valid, and in Bunting against Oregon, in which the Court approved a statute providing for payment for overtime at the rate of time and one-half of the regular wage. As the dissenting Justices argued, if the amount of a commodity to be disposed of can be limited in the interest of public health and welfare, why cannot the minimum price to be paid therefor be similarly restricted?

The second ground for criticism is that Mr. Justice Sutherland appears to have argued in syllogisms, and to have expressed himself in a way which is not calculated to convince those in whose interest the law was passed that he had in mind what questions were involved. The opinion suggests too strongly that in the famous case of Lochner against New York, decided in 1905, in which the Court held that a law prohibiting more than a 60-hour week in a bakery was unconstitutional.

The decision in the minimum wage case has most dangerous possibilities. Any amendment which would provide for the true contingencies on the theory that the Supreme Court will be a reactionary body would probably strike at the foundations of the constitution. Resort is therefore being had to the suggestion that the power of the Supreme Court to declare statutes unconstitutional be limited, and there is danger of an ill-advised attempt to obtain a constitutional amendment providing for such a limitation.

Some newspapers have intimated that the decision, which related to a District of Columbia statute passed by Congress, would not be considered binding in the event that a state law came before the Court. The power of Congress is limited by the Fifth Amendment and that of the states by the Fourteenth, but they are substantially identical in providing for the liberty of contract, and there is little reason to anticipate that any state law will receive more favorable consideration.

(For the reaction of the general public to the Minimum Wage decision see pages 2 and 3.)