Fixed Opinions

Meeting in the final session of its 1935-36 term, the U. S. Supreme Court this week handed down one more 5-to-4 decision against "social justice."

By a 5-to-3 decision 13 years ago the Supreme Court declared a Congressional statute fixing minimum wages for women workers in the District of Columbia to be in violation of the 14th Amendment. Surviving members of that Court are Justices Butler, Sutherland, McReynolds and Van Devanter, who concurred in the majority opinion, and Justice Brandeis, who refrained from sitting in the case because he had advocated passage of the law.

Up for decision this week was a case involving a law passed by New York State in 1933 providing minimum wage standards for women and children. On the strength of the Supreme Court's 1923 decision, New York's Court of Appeals last March ruled the law unconstitutional. Its supporters hoped that, because it set up a commission to determine "fair and reasonable value of services," whereas the District of Columbia law had been simply a ban on starvation wages, the Supreme Court of 1936 would find it valid.

They were disappointed. Joined by Justice Roberts, Conservative Justices Butler, McReynolds, Sutherland and Van Devanter revealed that the passage of 13 years had changed their opinions not one iota, that they still believed in the right of women to work for any wages they could get. "This court," announced Justice Butler in the majority opinion, "after thoughtful attention to all that was suggested against that decision, adhered to it as sound."

"I can find," bristled dissenting Chief Justice Hughes, "nothing in the Federal Constitution which denies to the state the power to protect women from being exploited by over reaching employers. . . ."

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