* *

the sum or value of two thousand dollars, and arising under the Constitution or laws of the United States. * * This is emphasized by the amendment engrafted upon the original act in 1910, to the effect that "the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States under this act shall be concurrent with that of the courts of the sev eral States, and no case arising under this act, and brought in any State court of competent jurisdiction, shall be removed to any court of the United States." The amendment, as appears by its language, instead of granting jurisdiction to the state courts, presupposes that they already possessed it.

The suggestion that the Act of Congress is not in harmony with the policy of the State, and therefore that the courts of the State are free to decline jurisdiction, is quite inadmissible, because it presupposes what in legal contemplation does not exist. When Congress, in the exertion of the power confided to it by the Constitution, adopted that act, it spoke for all the people and all the States, and thereby established a policy for all. That policy is as much the policy of Connecticut as if the act had emanated from its own legislature, and should be respected accordingly in the courts of the State.

* * *

We are not disposed to believe that the exercise of jurisdiction by the State courts will be attended by any appreciable inconvenience or confusion; but, be this as it may, it affords no reason for declining a jurisdiction conferred by law. The existence of the jurisdiction creates an implication of duty to exercise it, and that its exercise may be onerous does not militate against that implication. Besides, it is neither new nor unusual in judicial proceedings to apply different rules of law to different situations and subjects, even although possessing some elements of similarity, as where the liability of a public carrier for personal injuries turns upon whether the injured person was a passenger, an employee, or a stranger. But it never has been supposed that courts are at liberty to decline cognizance of cases of a particular class merely because the rules of law to be applied in their adjudication are unlike those applied in other cases.

We conclude that rights arising under the act in question may be enforced, as of right, in the courts of the States when their jurisdiction, as prescribed by local laws, is adequate to the occasion.

(The court reversed the Mondou case, and sustained the judg ments in the other three so as to uphold the act.)

Note 1.-See Champion v. Ames, supra, for another example of Federal police power, as affecting interstate commerce.

Note 2.-Adamson Law Case.-Wilson v. New, 243 U. S. 332, (1917). Alexander New and Henry C. Ferris, Receivers of the Missouri, Oklahoma & Gulf Railway Company brought a bill against Francis M. Wilson, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, to enjoin the enforcement of the Federal Statute of September 3, 5, 1916 known as the Adamson Law, fixing an eight-hour workday for, and temporarily regulating the wages of, railway employees engaged in the operation of trains upon interstate

railways. Congress, confronted with an imminent interruption of interstate commerce by a threatened general strike of railway employees, the outcome of a dispute over a wage standard, passed this Act in an attempt to fix a permanent standard working day for employees on interstate railways and making a temporary wage regulation.

The Supreme Court of the United States sustained the Act primarily upon the ground that it was the regulation of a business charged with a public interest. The court, speaking through the Chief Justice, pointed out that regarding "the private right and private interest, as contra-distinguished from the public interest, the power exists between the parties, the employers and employees, to agree as to a standard of wages free from legislative interference;" but that this did not affect the power to deal with the matter with a view to protecting the public right, and then said: "and this emphasizes that there is no question here of purely private right, since the law is concerned only with those who are engaged in a business charged with the public interest, where the subject dealt with is to all the parties as one involved in that business, and which we have seen comes under the control of the right to regulate to the extent that the power to do so is appropriate or relevant to the business regulated." In sustaining the wage feature of the law, emphasis was put upon the fact that it was in this respect temporary, "leaving the employers and employees free as to the subject of wages to govern their relation by their own agreement after the specified time." The Act was not only temporary in this respect, but it was passed to meet a sudden and great emergency. This feature of the law was sustained principally because the parties for the time being, could not or would not agree

FIRST CHILD LABOR CASE.

HAMMER v. DAGENHART.

247 U. S. 251. 1918.

Roland H. Dagenhart filed a bill in the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina in his own behalf and as father and next friend of his two minor sons, one under the age of fourteen years and the other between the ages of fourteen and sixteen years, employees in a cotton mill at Charlotte, North Carolina, against W. C. Hammer, United States Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, to enjoin the enforcement of the Act of Congress intended to prevent interstate commerce in the products of child labor. 39 Stat. at L. 675, Chap. 432. This Act provides as follows:

"That no producer, manufacturer, or dealer shall ship or deliver for shipment interstate or foreign commerce any article or commodity the product of any mine or quarry, situated in the United States, in which within thirty days prior to the time of the removal of such product therefrom children under the age of sixteen years have been employed or permitted to work, or any article or commodity the product of any mill, cannery, workshop, factory, or manufacturing establishment, situated in the United States, in which within thirty days prior to the removal of such product therefrom children under the age of fourteen years have been employed or permitted to work, or children between the ages of fourteen years

and sixteen years have been employed or permitted to work more than eight hours in any day, or more than six days in any week, or after the hour of 7 o'clock postmeridian, or before the hour of 6 o'clock antemeridian."

The District Court held the Act unconstitutional and entered a decree enjoining its enforcement. An appeal was brought to the Supreme Court of the United States.

MR. JUSTICE DAY delivered the opinion of the court:

The thing intended to be accomplished by this statute is the denial of the facilities of interstate commerce to those manufacturers in the states who employ children within the prohibited ages. The act in its effect does not regulate transportation among the States, but aims to standardize the ages at which children may be employed in mining and manufacturing within the states. The goods shipped are of themselves harmless. The act permits them to be freely shipped after thirty days from the time of their removal from the factory. When offered for shipment, and before transportation begins, the labor of their production is over, and the mere fact that they were intended for interstate commerce transportation does not make their production subject to Federal control under the commerce power.

Commerce "consists of intercourse and traffic

and

includes the transportation of persons and property, as well as the purchase, sale and exchange of commodities." The making of goods and the mining of coal are not commerce, nor does the fact that these things are to be afterwards shipped, or used in interstate commerce, make their production a part thereof. Delaware, L. & W. R. Co. v. Yurkonis, 238 U. S. 439. *

It is further contended that the authority of Congress may be exerted to control interstate commerce in the shipment of childmade goods because of the effect of the circulation of such goods in other states where the evil of this class of labor has been recognized by local legislation and the right to thus employ child labor has been more rigorously restrained than in the state of production. In other words, that the unfair competition thus engendered may be controlled by closing the channels of interstate commerce to manufacturers in those states where the local laws do not meet what Congress deems to be the more just standard of other states.

There is no power vested in Congress to require the states to exercise their police power so as to prevent possible unfair competition. Many causes may co-operate to give one state, by reason of local laws or conditions, an economic advantage over others. The commerce clause was not intended to give to Congress a general authority to equalize such conditions. In some of the states. laws have been passed fixing minimum wages for women; in others the local law regulates the hours of labor of women in various

employments. Business done in such states may be at an economic disadvantage when compared with states which have no such regulations; surely, this fact does not give Congress the power to deny transportation in interstate commerce to those who carry on business where the hours of labor and the rate of compensation for women have not been fixed by a standard in the use in other states and approved by Congress.

The grant of power to Congress over the subject of interstate commerce was to enable it to regulate such commerce, and not to give it authority to control the states in their exercise of the police power over local trade and manufacture.

In our view the necessary effect of this act is, by means of a prohibition against the movement in interstate commerce of ordinary commercial commodities, to regulate the hours of labor of children in factories and mines within the states,-a purely state authority. Thus the act in a twofold sense is repugnant to the Constitution. It not only transcends the authority delegated to Congress over commerce, but also exerts a power as to a purely local matter to which the Federal authority does not extend. The far-reaching result of upholding the act cannot be more plainly indicated than by pointing out that if Congress can thus regulate matters intrusted to local authority by prohibition of the movement of commodities in interstate commerce, all freedom of commerce will be at an end, and the power of the states over local matters may be eliminated, and thus our system of government be practically destroyed.

For these reasons we hold that this law exceeds the constitutional authority of Congress. It follows that the decree of the District Court must be affirmed.

JUSTICES HOLMES, MCKENNA, BRANDEIS and CLARK dissented.

Note 1.-For Second Child Labor Case in which Congress attempted to accomplish practically the same result under its taxing power as in the above case, see supra.

Note 2.-In Dayton-Goose Creek Ry. Co. v. United States, 68 L. Ed. 216, decided January 7, 1924, the main question in the case was whether the socalled "recapture" provisions of the Transportation Act of 1920 were constitutional. The act provided for payment to a general revolving fund maintained by the Interstate Commerce Commission of one-half of a carrier's net income above a reasonable return on its investment. This fund under the supervision of the Commission is to be loaned to carriers to buy equipment, etc. The object of the act is, of course, to put all the railroad systems of the country under the fostering guardianship and control of the Commission and to help the smaller and weaker roads to keep them functioning. The volume of intrastate traffic of the Dayton-Goose Creek Railway Company exceeded that of its interstate traffic. It brought a bill against the Interstae Commerce Commission, etc., to enjoin the enforcement of the act against it. The lower court dismissed the bill and its decree was affirmed by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court held there was no confiscation of property and that the act was constitutional.

Note 3.-Weber v. Freed, 239 U. S. 325, (1915), the Supreme Court sustained the validity of the Act of July 31, 1912, making it unlawful to import into the United States any film or pictorial representation of any prize fight for

purposes of public exhibition. It was contended that Congress had exceeded its designated powers and was attempting under the guise of its powers under the commerce clause, to exercise police power expressly reserved in the states. The court held that the power of Congress over foreign commerce is complete and that it has the authority to prohibit the introduction of foreign articles.

8. The Patent and Copyright Clause as Affecting Commerce and Price Fixing.

The Constitution in Article I, Section 9, provides that "Congress shall have power to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."

SIDNEY HENRY, ET AL., v. A. B. DICK COMPANY.

224 U. S. 1. 1912.

The complainant, the A. B. Dick Company, brought an action for the infringement of two letters patent, owned by it, covering a stencil-duplicating machine known as the "Rotary Mimeograph." The Dick Company sold to Miss Christina B. Skou, of New York, a Rotary Mimeograph embodying the invention described and claimed in said patents, under a license which was attached to said machine, as follows:

"LICENSE RESTRICTION.-This machine is sold by the A. B. Dick Company with the license restriction that it may be used only with the stencil paper, ink, and other supplies made by A. B. Dick Company, Chicago, U. S. A.”

The defendant, Sidney Henry, sold to Miss Skou a can of ink suitable for use on said mimeograph, with knowledge of the said license agreement, and with the expectation that it would be used in connection with said mimeograph. The ink sold to Miss Skou was not covered by the claims of said patents. Upon the facts above set forth the U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second District desired the instruction of the Supreme Court and certified to the Supreme Court the following question: "Did the acts of the defendants constitute contributory infringement* of the complainant's patents?"

MR. JUSTICE LURTON delivered the opinion of the court:

* That the license agreement constitutes a contract not to use the machine in a prohibited manner is plain. That defendants might be sued upon the broken contract, or for its en

*Note.-Contributory infringement has been well defined as the intentional aiding of one person by another in the unlawful making, or selling, or using of the patented invention. Thompson-Houston Electric Co. v. Kelsey, etc., Co., 72 Fed. 1016.