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Wednesday, May 18, 2022

U.S. Supreme Court Overrules Federal Child Labor Law; N.C. Youth May Again Work in Factories, Mines, Quarries at 14. May 18, 1922

William Howard Taft--President 1909-1913 and then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court 1921-1930

Federal Child Labor Statute Declared Unconstitutional; State Law in Operation Now. . . Court Was Unanimous in Its Decision and Says Statute Was Clearly Prohibitive and Not Revenue Measure; Appeals Were From North Carolina, and It Will be up to the Next Legislature to Enact a Better State Law

The Supreme Court of the United States has declared the act passed by congress regulating the employment of child labor void.

With the federal child-labor law declared unconstitutional, the North Carolina age limit, two years under the federal statute, becomes permanently effective and the burden of inspection and enforcement is thrown entirely on the state.

Under the federal statute the child labor limitation was fixed at the age of 16. Under North Carolina’s statute, in which the enforcement is placed in the hands of the superintendent of public welfare and county superintendents over the state, the age at which a child may work in manufacturing plants is beyond 14. The decision of the court, it would seem, therefore releases a great many children between the ages of 14 and 16 from the prohibition against industrial occupations theretofore enforced by the United States government.

The State Board of Public Welfare has hitherto cooperated with the federal agencies in the factory inspection necessary. Now all of this devolves upon the state board alone, and the indications are the county superintendents of welfare will have their duties considerably increased as a result.

Decision of the Court

Dispatches from Washington give the following particulars:

The child labor law was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. The law, enacted in 1919, was intended to regulate the employment of children under 14 years of age in any mill, cannery workshop, factory or manufacturing establishment or in any mine or quarry under 16 years, by imposing an excise tax of 10 per cent upon the net annual profits of those employing such labor. It was attacked on the ground that it attempted to regulate an exclusive state function, in violation of the federal constitution and the 10th Amendment, and was defended as a mere excise tax levied by congress under its broad power of taxation conferred by the federal constitution.

The law as attacked in the supreme court by three cases from North Carolina, appealed by the government. Two of these, the Atherton Mills and that by John J., George and others, were dismissed on technicalities, but the case brought by the Drexel Furniture Company was found in proper form and it was in that the law was declared invalid.

The opinion was delivered by Chief Justice Taft, with no dissent announced.

Intended to be Prohibitory

The case was discussed at length in view of previous decisions involving questions bearing on the taxing power of congress, and the law was held invalid as an attempt by congress to regulate through its taxing power something entirely within the jurisdiction of the various states in the exercise of their police power.

“Does this law impose a tax with only that incidental restraint and regulation which a tax must inevitably involve?” the Chief Justice asked, “or does it regulate by the use of the so-called tax as a penalty. If a tax, it is clearly an excise. If it were an excise on a commodity or other thing of value we might not be permitted under previous decisions of this court to infer solely from its heavy burden that the act intends a prohibition instead of a tax. But this act is more.”

After analyzing the principal features of the law and its operation, the chief justice said: “In the light of these features of the act, a court must be blind no to see that the so-called tax is imposed to stop the employment of children within the age limits prescribed.”

“Its prohibitory and regulatory effect and purpose are palpable,” he added. “All others can see and understand this. How can we shut our minds to it?”

Left to State Control

Declaring it the duty of the court to decline to recognize or enforce laws of congress dealing with subjects not entrusted to congress, but left by the supreme law of the land to control the states, the chief justice said the court must perform that duty “even though it require us to refuse to give effect to legislation designed to promote the highest good.”

Out of proper respect to a coordinate branch of the government, the supreme court has gone far to sustain taxing acts as such, Chief Justice Taft continued, adding this had been done “even though there has been ground for suspecting from the weight of the tax it was intended to destroy the subject.”

“But in the act before us,” he said, “the presumption of validity cannot prevail because the proof of the contrary is found on the very face of its provisions. Grant the validity of the law, and all congress would have to do hereafter in seeking to take over to its control any one of the great number of subjects of public interest, jurisdiction of which the states have never parted with, and which are reserved to them by the 10th Amendment, would be to enact a detailed measure of complete regulation of the subject and enforce it by a so-called tax upon departures from it. To give such magic to the word ‘tax’ would be to break down all constitutional limitations of the powers of congress and completely wipe out the sovereignty of the states.”

From the front page of The Union Herald, Raleigh, N.C., Thursday, May 18, 1922

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