On this day in 1941, the Supreme Court upheld the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.
Worker on lumber stack, 1941.
312 U.S. 100 (1941)
UNITED STATES
v.
DARBY.
No. 82.
Supreme Court of United States.
Argued December 19, 20, 1940.
Decided February 3, 1941.
APPEAL
FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF
GEORGIA.
Solicitor
General Biddle, with whom Assistant Attorney General Arnold and Messrs.
Robert L. Stern, Hugh B. Cox, Warner W. Gardner, J. Saxton Daniel, Gerard D.
Reilly, and Irving J. Levy were on the brief, for the
United States.
Mr.
Archibald B. Lovett for appellee.
MR.
JUSTICE STONE delivered the opinion of the Court.
The two principal questions raised by the record in this case
are, first, whether Congress has constitutional power to
prohibit the shipment in interstate commerce of lumber manufactured by
employees whose wages are less than a prescribed minimum or whose weekly hours
of labor at that wage are greater than a prescribed maximum, and, second, whether
it has power to prohibit the employment of workmen in the production of goods
"for interstate commerce" at other than prescribed wages and hours. A
subsidiary question is whether in connection with such prohibitions Congress
can require the employer subject to them to keep records showing the hours
worked each day and week by each of his employees including those engaged
"in the production and manufacture of goods to-wit, lumber, for
`interstate commerce.'"
Appellee demurred to an indictment found in the district court
for southern Georgia charging him with violation of § 15 (a) (1) (2) and (5) of
the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938; 52 Stat. 1060, 29 U.S.C. § 201, et
seq. The district court sustained the demurrer and quashed the indictment
and the case comes here on direct appeal under § 238 of the Judicial Code as
amended, 28 U.S.C.
§ 345, and § 682, Title 18 U.S.C., 34 Stat. 1246, which authorizes an appeal to
this Court when the judgment sustaining the demurrer "is based upon the
invalidity or construction of the statute upon which the indictment is
founded."
The Fair Labor Standards Act set up a comprehensive legislative
scheme for preventing the shipment in interstate commerce of certain products
and commodities produced in the United States under labor conditions as
respects wages and hours which fail to conform to standards set up by the Act.
Its purpose, as we judicially know from the declaration of policy in § 2 (a) of
the Act,[1] and
the reports of Congressional committees proposing the legislation, S. Rept. No.
884, 75th Cong. 1st Sess.; H. Rept. No. 1452, 75th Cong. 1st Sess.; H. Rept.
No. 2182, 75th Cong. 3d Sess., Conference Report, H. Rept. No. 2738, 75th Cong.
3d Sess., is to exclude from interstate commerce goods produced for the
commerce and to prevent their production for interstate commerce, under
conditions detrimental to the maintenance of the minimum standards of living
necessary for health and general well-being; and to prevent the use of
interstate commerce
as the means of competition in the distribution of goods so produced, and as
the means of spreading and perpetuating such substandard labor conditions among
the workers of the several states. The Act also sets up an administrative
procedure whereby those standards may from time to time be modified generally
as to industries subject to the Act or within an industry in accordance with
specified standards, by an administrator acting in collaboration with
"Industry Committees" appointed by him.
Section 15 of the statute prohibits certain specified acts and §
16 (a) punishes willful violation of it by a fine of not more than $10,000 and
punishes each conviction after the first by imprisonment of not more than six
months or by the specified fine or both. Section 15 (1) makes unlawful the
shipment in interstate commerce of any goods "in the production of which
any employee was employed in violation of section 6 or section 7," which
provide, among other things, that during the first year of operation of the Act
a minimum wage of 25 cents per hour shall be paid to employees "engaged in
[interstate] commerce or the production of goods for [interstate]
commerce," § 6, and that the maximum hours of employment for employees
"engaged in commerce or the production of goods for commerce" without
increased compensation for overtime, shall be forty-four hours a week. § 7.
Section 15 (a) (2) makes it unlawful to violate the provisions
of §§ 6 and 7 including the minimum wage and maximum hour requirements just
mentioned for employees engaged in production of goods for commerce. Section 15
(a) (5) makes it unlawful for an employer subject to the Act to violate § 11
(c) which requires him to keep such records of the persons employed by him and
of their wages and hours of employment as the administrator shall prescribe by
regulation or order.
The
indictment charges that appellee is engaged, in the State of Georgia, in the
business of acquiring raw materials, which he manufactures into finished lumber
with the intent, when manufactured, to ship it in interstate commerce to
customers outside the state, and that he does in fact so ship a large part of
the lumber so produced. There are numerous counts charging appellee with the
shipment in interstate commerce from Georgia to points outside the state of
lumber in the production of which, for interstate commerce, appellee has
employed workmen at less than the prescribed minimum wage or more than the
prescribed maximum hours without payment to them of any wage for overtime.
Other counts charge the employment by appellee of workmen in the production of
lumber for interstate commerce at wages at less than 25 cents an hour or for
more than the maximum hours per week without payment to them of the prescribed
overtime wage. Still another count charges appellee with failure to keep
records showing the hours worked each day a week by each of his employees as
required by § 11 (c) and the regulation of the administrator, Title 29, Ch. 5,
Code of Federal Regulations, Part 516, and also that appellee unlawfully failed
to keep such records of employees engaged "in the production and
manufacture of goods, to-wit lumber, for interstate commerce."
The demurrer, so far as now relevant to the appeal, challenged
the validity of the Fair Labor Standards Act under the Commerce Clause and the
Fifth and Tenth Amendments. The district court quashed the indictment in its
entirety upon the broad grounds that the Act, which it interpreted as a
regulation of manufacture within the states, is unconstitutional. It declared
that manufacture is not interstate commerce and that the regulation by the Fair
Labor Standards Act of wages and hours of employment of those engaged in the
manufacture of
goods which it is intended at the time of production "may or will be"
after production "sold in interstate commerce in part or in whole" is
not within the congressional power to regulate interstate commerce.
The effect of the court's decision and judgment is thus to deny
the power of Congress to prohibit shipment in interstate commerce of lumber
produced for interstate commerce under the proscribed substandard labor
conditions of wages and hours, its power to penalize the employer for his
failure to conform to the wage and hour provisions in the case of employees
engaged in the production of lumber which he intends thereafter to ship in
interstate commerce in part or in whole according to the normal course of his
business and its power to compel him to keep records of hours of employment as
required by the statute and the regulations of the administrator.
The case comes here on assignments by the Government that the
district court erred insofar as it held that Congress was without
constitutional power to penalize the acts set forth in the indictment, and
appellee seeks to sustain the decision below on the grounds that the
prohibition by Congress of those Acts is unauthorized by the Commerce Clause
and is prohibited by the Fifth Amendment. The appeal statute limits our
jurisdiction on this appeal to a review of the determination of the district
court so far only as it is based on the validity or construction of the
statute. United States v. Borden
Co., 308 U.S. 188, 193-195, and cases cited. Hence we
accept the district court's interpretation of the indictment and confine our
decision to the validity and construction of the statute.
The prohibition of shipment of the proscribed
goods in interstate commerce. Section 15 (a) (1) prohibits, and the indictment charges,
the shipment in interstate commerce, of goods produced for interstate commerce
by employees whose wages and hours of employment do not 113*113 conform
to the requirements of the Act. Since this section is not violated unless the
commodity shipped has been produced under labor conditions prohibited by § 6
and § 7, the only question arising under the commerce clause with respect to
such shipments is whether Congress has the constitutional power to prohibit
them.
While manufacture is not of itself interstate commerce, the
shipment of manufactured goods interstate is such commerce and the prohibition
of such shipment by Congress is indubitably a regulation of the commerce. The
power to regulate commerce is the power "to prescribe the rule by which
commerce is governed." Gibbons v. Ogden, 9
Wheat. 1, 196. It extends not only to those regulations which aid,
foster and protect the commerce, but embraces those which prohibit it. Reid v. Colorado, 187
U.S. 137; Lottery Case, 188
U.S. 321; United States v. Delaware
& Hudson Co., 213 U.S. 366; Hoke v. United
States, 227 U.S. 308; Clark Distilling Co. v. Western
Maryland Ry. Co., 242 U.S. 311; United States v. Hill, 248
U.S. 420; McCormick & Co. v. Brown, 286
U.S. 131. It is conceded that the power of Congress to prohibit
transportation in interstate commerce includes noxious articles, Lottery Case, supra; Hipolite Egg Co. v. United
States, 220 U.S. 45; cf. Hoke v. United
States, supra; stolen articles, Brooks v. United
States, 267 U.S. 432; kidnapped persons, Gooch v. United
States, 297 U.S. 124, and articles such as
intoxicating liquor or convict made goods, traffic in which is forbidden or
restricted by the laws of the state of destination. Kentucky Whip & Collar Co. v. Illinois Central R. Co., 299
U.S. 334.
But it is said that the present prohibition falls within the
scope of none of these categories; that while the prohibition is nominally a
regulation of the commerce its motive or purpose is regulation of wages and
hours of persons engaged in manufacture, the control of which has been reserved
to the states and upon which Georgia and
some of the states of destination have placed no restriction; that the effect
of the present statute is not to exclude the proscribed articles from
interstate commerce in aid of state regulation as in Kentucky Whip & Collar Co. v. Illinois Central R. Co., supra, but
instead, under the guise of a regulation of interstate commerce, it undertakes
to regulate wages and hours within the state contrary to the policy of the
state which has elected to leave them unregulated.
The power of Congress over interstate commerce "is complete
in itself, may be exercised to its utmost extent, and acknowledges no
limitations other than are prescribed in the Constitution." Gibbons v. Ogden,
supra, 196. That power can neither be enlarged nor diminished by the
exercise or non-exercise of state power. Kentucky Whip & Collar Co. v. Illinois Central R. Co., supra. Congress,
following its own conception of public policy concerning the restrictions which
may appropriately be imposed on interstate commerce, is free to exclude from
the commerce articles whose use in the states for which they are destined it
may conceive to be injurious to the public health, morals or welfare, even
though the state has not sought to regulate their use. Reid v. Colorado,
supra; Lottery Case, supra; Hipolite Egg Co. v. United
States, supra; Hoke v. United
States, supra.
Such regulation is not a forbidden invasion of state power merely
because either its motive or its consequence is to restrict the use of articles
of commerce within the states of destination; and is not prohibited unless by
other Constitutional provisions. It is no objection to the assertion of the
power to regulate interstate commerce that its exercise is attended by the same
incidents which attend the exercise of the police power of the states. Seven Cases v. United
States, 239 U.S. 510, 514; Hamilton v. Kentucky
Distilleries & Warehouse Co., 251 U.S. 146, 156; United States v. Carolene
Products Co., 304 U.S. 144, 147; United States v. Appalachian
Electric Power Co., 311 U.S. 377.
The motive and purpose of the present regulation are plainly to
make effective the Congressional conception of public policy that interstate
commerce should not be made the instrument of competition in the distribution
of goods produced under substandard labor conditions, which competition is
injurious to the commerce and to the states from and to which the commerce
flows. The motive and purpose of a regulation of interstate commerce are
matters for the legislative judgment upon the exercise of which the
Constitution places no restriction and over which the courts are given no
control. McCray v. United
States, 195 U.S. 27; Sonzinsky v. United
States, 300 U.S. 506, 513 and cases cited. "The
judicial cannot prescribe to the legislative department of the government
limitations upon the exercise of its acknowledged power." Veazie Bank v. Fenno, 8
Wall. 533. Whatever their motive and purpose, regulations of
commerce which do not infringe some constitutional prohibition are within the
plenary power conferred on Congress by the Commerce Clause. Subject only to
that limitation, presently to be considered, we conclude that the prohibition
of the shipment interstate of goods produced under the forbidden substandard
labor conditions is within the constitutional authority of Congress.
In the more than a century which has elapsed since the decision
of Gibbons v. Ogden, these
principles of constitutional interpretation have been so long and repeatedly
recognized by this Court as applicable to the Commerce Clause, that there would
be little occasion for repeating them now were it not for the decision of this
Court twenty-two years ago in Hammer v. Dagenhart, 247
U.S. 251. In that case it was held by a bare majority of the Court
over the powerful and now classic dissent of Mr. Justice Holmes setting forth
the fundamental issues involved, that
Congress was without power to exclude the products of child labor from
interstate commerce. The reasoning and conclusion of the Court's opinion there
cannot be reconciled with the conclusion which we have reached, that the power
of Congress under the Commerce Clause is plenary to exclude any article from
interstate commerce subject only to the specific prohibitions of the
Constitution.
Hammer v. Dagenhart has
not been followed. The distinction on which the decision was rested that
Congressional power to prohibit interstate commerce is limited to articles
which in themselves have some harmful or deleterious property — a distinction
which was novel when made and unsupported by any provision of the Constitution
— has long since been abandoned. Brooks v. United
States, supra; Kentucky Whip & Collar Co. v. Illinois Central R. Co., supra; Electric Bond
& Share Co. v. Securities & Exchange Comm'n, 303
U.S. 419; Mulford v. Smith, 307
U.S. 38. The thesis of the opinion that the motive of the
prohibition or its effect to control in some measure the use or production
within the states of the article thus excluded from the commerce can operate to
deprive the regulation of its constitutional authority has long since ceased to
have force. Reid v. Colorado,
supra; Lottery Case, supra; Hipolite Egg Co. v. United
States, supra; Seven Cases v. United
States, supra, 514; Hamilton v. Kentucky
Distilleries & Warehouse Co., supra, 156; United States v. Carolene
Products Co., supra, 147. And finally we have declared
"The authority of the federal government over interstate commerce does not
differ in extent or character from that retained by the states over intrastate
commerce." United States v. Rock
Royal Co-operative, 307 U.S. 533, 569.
The conclusion is inescapable that Hammer v. Dagenhart, was
a departure from the principles which have prevailed in the interpretation of
the Commerce Clause both before
and since the decision and that such vitality, as a precedent, as it then had
has long since been exhausted. It should be and now is overruled.
Validity of the wage and hour requirements. Section 15 (a) (2) and §§ 6 and 7
require employers to conform to the wage and hour provisions with respect to
all employees engaged in the production of goods for interstate commerce. As
appellee's employees are not alleged to be "engaged in interstate commerce"
the validity of the prohibition turns on the question whether the employment,
under other than the prescribed labor standards, of employees engaged in the
production of goods for interstate commerce is so related to the commerce and
so affects it as to be within the reach of the power of Congress to regulate
it.
To answer this question we must at the outset determine whether
the particular acts charged in the counts which are laid under § 15 (a) (2) as
they were construed below, constitute "production for commerce"
within the meaning of the statute. As the Government seeks to apply the statute
in the indictment, and as the court below construed the phrase "produced
for interstate commerce," it embraces at least the case where an employer
engaged, as is appellee, in the manufacture and shipment of goods in filling
orders of extrastate customers, manufactures his product with the intent or
expectation that according to the normal course of his business all or some
part of it will be selected for shipment to those customers.
Without attempting to define the precise limits of the phrase,
we think the acts alleged in the indictment are within the sweep of the
statute. The obvious purpose of the Act was not only to prevent the interstate
transportation of the proscribed product, but to stop the initial step toward
transportation, production with the purpose of so transporting it. Congress was
not unaware that 118*118 most
manufacturing businesses shipping their product in interstate commerce make it
in their shops without reference to its ultimate destination and then after
manufacture select some of it for shipment interstate and some intrastate
according to the daily demands of their business, and that it would be
practically impossible, without disrupting manufacturing businesses, to
restrict the prohibited kind of production to the particular pieces of lumber,
cloth, furniture or the like which later move in interstate rather than
intrastate commerce. Cf. United States v. New
York Central R. Co., 272 U.S. 457, 464.
The recognized need of drafting a workable statute and the well
known circumstances in which it was to be applied are persuasive of the conclusion,
which the legislative history supports, S. Rept. No. 884, 75th Cong. 1st Sess.,
pp. 7 and 8; H. Rept. No. 2738, 75th Cong. 3d Sess., p. 17, that the
"production for commerce" intended includes at least production of
goods, which, at the time of production, the employer, according to the normal
course of his business, intends or expects to move in interstate commerce
although, through the exigencies of the business, all of the goods may not
thereafter actually enter interstate commerce.[2]
There remains the question whether such restriction on the
production of goods for commerce is a permissible exercise of the commerce
power. The power of Congress over interstate commerce is not confined to the
regulation of commerce among the states. It extends to those activities
intrastate which so affect interstate commerce or the exercise of the power of
Congress over it as to make regulation of them appropriate means to the
attainment of a legitimate end, the exercise of the granted power of Congress to
regulate interstate commerce. See McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 421.
Cf. United States v. Ferger, 250
U.S. 199.
While this Court has many times found state regulation of interstate
commerce, when uniformity of its regulation is of national concern, to be
incompatible with the Commerce Clause even though Congress has not legislated
on the subject, the Court has never implied such restraint on state control
over matters intrastate not deemed to be regulations of interstate commerce or
its instrumentalities even though they affect the commerce. Minnesota Rate Cases, 230
U.S. 352, 398 et seq., and case cited; 410 et
seq., and cases cited. In the absence of Congressional legislation on
the subject state laws which are not regulations of the commerce itself or its
instrumentalities are not forbidden even though they affect interstate
commerce. Kidd v. Pearson, 128
U.S. 1; Bacon v. Illinois, 227
U.S. 504; Heisler v. Thomas
Colliery Co., 260 U.S. 245; Oliver Iron Co. v. Lord, 262
U.S. 172.
But it does not follow that Congress may not by appropriate
legislation regulate intrastate activities where they have a substantial effect
on interstate commerce. See Santa Cruz Fruit Packing Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 303
U.S. 453, 466. A recent example is the National Labor Relations Act
for the regulation of employer and employee relations in industries in which
strikes, induced by unfair labor practices named in the Act, tend to disturb or
obstruct interstate commerce. See National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301
U.S. 1, 38, 40; National Labor Relations Board v. Fainblatt, 306 U.S. 601, 604, and
cases cited. But long before the adoption of the National Labor Relations Act
this Court had many times held that the power of Congress to regulate
interstate commerce extends to the regulation through legislative action of
activities intrastate 120*120 which
have a substantial effect on the commerce or the exercise of the Congressional
power over it.[3]
In such legislation Congress has sometimes left it to the courts
to determine whether the intrastate activities have the prohibited effect on
the commerce, as in the Sherman Act. It has sometimes left it to an
administrative board or agency to determine whether the activities sought to be
regulated or prohibited have such effect, as in the case of the Interstate
Commerce Act, and the National Labor Relations Act, or whether they come within
the statutory definition of the prohibited Act, as in the Federal Trade
Commission Act. And sometimes Congress itself has said that a particular
activity affects the commerce, as it did in the present Act, the Safety
Appliance Act and the Railway Labor Act. In passing on the validity of
legislation of the class last mentioned the only function of courts is to
determine whether the particular activity regulated or prohibited is within the
reach of
the federal power. See United States v. Ferger,
supra; Virginian Ry.
Co. v. Federation, 300 U.S. 515, 553.
Congress, having by the present Act adopted the policy of
excluding from interstate commerce all goods produced for the commerce which do
not conform to the specified labor standards, it may choose the means
reasonably adapted to the attainment of the permitted end, even though they
involve control of intrastate activities. Such legislation has often been
sustained with respect to powers, other than the commerce power granted to the
national government, when the means chosen, although not themselves within the
granted power, were nevertheless deemed appropriate aids to the accomplishment
of some purpose within an admitted power of the national government. See Jacob Ruppert, Inc. v. Caffey, 251
U.S. 264; Everard's Breweries v. Day, 265
U.S. 545, 560; Westfall v. United
States, 274 U.S. 256, 259. As to state power under the
Fourteenth Amendment, compare Otis v. Parker, 187
U.S. 606, 609; St. John v. New
York, 201 U.S. 633; Purity Extract & Tonic Co. v. Lynch, 226 U.S. 192, 201-202.
A familiar like exercise of power is the regulation of intrastate transactions
which are so commingled with or related to interstate commerce that all must be
regulated if the interstate commerce is to be effectively controlled. Shreveport Case, 234 U.S.
342; Railroad Commission of Wisconsin v. Chicago, B. & Q.R. Co., 257
U.S. 563; United States v. New
York Central R. Co., supra, 464; Currin v. Wallace, 306
U.S. 1; Mulford v. Smith,
supra. Similarly Congress may require inspection and
preventive treatment of all cattle in a disease infected area in order to
prevent shipment in interstate commerce of some of the cattle without the
treatment. Thornton v. United
States, 271 U.S. 414. It may prohibit the removal, at
destination, of labels required by the Pure Food & Drugs Act to be affixed
to articles transported
in interstate commerce. McDermott v. Wisconsin, 228
U.S. 115. And we have recently held that Congress in the exercise of
its power to require inspection and grading of tobacco shipped in interstate
commerce may compel such inspection and grading of all tobacco sold at local
auction rooms from which a substantial part but not all of the tobacco sold is
shipped in interstate commerce. Currin v. Wallace,
supra, 11, and see to the like effect United States v. Rock
Royal Co-op., supra, 568, note 37.
We think also that § 15 (a) (2), now under consideration, is
sustainable independently of § 15 (a) (1), which prohibits shipment or
transportation of the proscribed goods. As we have said the evils aimed at by
the Act are the spread of substandard labor conditions through the use of the
facilities of interstate commerce for competition by the goods so produced with
those produced under the prescribed or better labor conditions; and the
consequent dislocation of the commerce itself caused by the impairment or
destruction of local businesses by competition made effective through
interstate commerce. The Act is thus directed at the suppression of a method or
kind of competition in interstate commerce which it has in effect condemned as
"unfair," as the Clayton Act has condemned other "unfair methods
of competition" made effective through interstate commerce. See Van Camp & Sons Co. v. American Can Co., 278 U.S. 245; Federal Trade Comm'n v. Keppel
& Bro., 291 U.S. 304.
The Sherman Act and the National Labor Relations Act are
familiar examples of the exertion of the commerce power to prohibit or control
activities wholly intrastate because of their effect on interstate commerce.
See as to the Sherman Act, Northern Securities Co. v. United States, 193 U.S. 197; Swift & Co. v. United
States, 196 U.S. 375; United States v. Patten, 226
U.S. 525; United Mine Workers v. Coronado
Coal Co., 259 U.S. 344; Local No. 167 v. United States, 291
U.S. 293; Stevens Co. v. Foster
& Kleiser Co., 311 U.S. 255. As to the National Labor
Relations Act, see National Labor Relations Board v. Fainblatt, supra, and
cases cited.
The means adopted by § 15 (a) (2) for the protection of
interstate commerce by the suppression of the production of the condemned goods
for interstate commerce is so related to the commerce and so affects it as to
be within the reach of the commerce power. See Currin v. Wallace,
supra, 11. Congress, to attain its objective in the
suppression of nationwide competition in interstate commerce by goods produced
under substandard labor conditions, has made no distinction as to the volume or
amount of shipments in the commerce or of production for commerce by any
particular shipper or producer. It recognized that in present day industry,
competition by a small part may affect the whole and that the total effect of
the competition of many small producers may be great. See H. Rept. No. 2182,
75th Cong. 1st Sess., p. 7. The legislation aimed at a whole embraces all its
parts. Cf. National Labor Relations Board v. Fainblatt, supra, 606.
So far as Carter v. Carter
Coal Co., 298 U.S. 238, is inconsistent with this
conclusion, its doctrine is limited in principle by the decisions under the
Sherman Act and the National Labor Relations Act, which we have cited and which
we follow. See also Sunshine Anthracite Coal Co. v. Adkins, 310 U.S. 381; Currin v. Wallace,
supra; Mulford v. Smith,
supra; United States v. Rock
Royal Co-op., supra; Clover Fork Coal Co. v. National
Labor Relations Board, 97 F.2d 331; National Labor Relations Board v. Crowe Coal Co., 104 F.2d 633; National Labor Relations Board v. Good Coal Co., 110 F.2d 501.
Our conclusion is unaffected by the Tenth Amendment which
provides: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the
Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States,
are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." The amendment
states but a truism that all is retained which has not been surrendered. There
is nothing in the history of its adoption to suggest that it was more than
declaratory of the relationship between the national and state governments as
it had been established by the Constitution before the amendment or that its
purpose was other than to allay fears that the new national government might
seek to exercise powers not granted, and that the states might not be able to
exercise fully their reserved powers. See e.g., II Elliot's Debates, 123, 131;
III id. 450, 464, 600; IV id. 140, 149; I
Annals of Congress, 432, 761, 767-768; Story, Commentaries on the Constitution,
§§ 1907-1908.
From the beginning and for many years the amendment has been
construed as not depriving the national government of authority to resort to
all means for the exercise of a granted power which are appropriate and plainly
adapted to the permitted end. Martin v. Hunter's
Lessee, 1 Wheat. 304, 324, 325; McCulloch v. Maryland,
supra, 405, 406; Gordon v. United
States, 117 U.S. 697, 705; Lottery Case, supra; Northern
Securities Co. v. United States, supra, 344-345; Everard's Breweries v. Day,
supra, 558; United States v. Sprague, 282
U.S. 716, 733; see United States v. The
Brigantine William, 28 Fed. Cas. No. 16,700, p. 622.
Whatever doubts may have arisen of the soundness of that conclusion, they have
been put at rest by the decisions under the Sherman Act and the National Labor
Relations Act which we have cited. See also, Ashwander v. Tennessee
Valley Authority, 297 U.S. 288, 330-331; Wright v. Union
Central Ins. Co., 304 U.S. 502, 516.
Validity of the requirement of records of
wages and hours. § 15 (a) (5) and
§ 11 (c). These requirements are incidental to those for the prescribed wages
and hours,
and hence validity of the former turns on validity of the latter. Since, as we
have held, Congress may require production for interstate commerce to conform
to those conditions, it may require the employer, as a means of enforcing the
valid law, to keep a record showing whether he has in fact complied with it.
The requirement for records even of the intrastate transaction is an
appropriate means to the legitimate end. See Baltimore & Ohio R. Co. v. Interstate Commerce Comm'n, 221
U.S. 612; Interstate Commerce Comm'n v. Goodrich Transit Co., 224 U.S.
194; Chicago Board of Trade v. Olsen, 262
U.S. 1, 42.
Validity of the wage and hour provisions under
the Fifth Amendment. Both provisions
are minimum wage requirements compelling the payment of a minimum standard wage
with a prescribed increased wage for overtime of "not less than one and
one-half times the regular rate" at which the worker is employed. Since
our decision in West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 300
U.S. 379, it is no longer open to question that the fixing of a
minimum wage is within the legislative power and that the bare fact of its
exercise is not a denial of due process under the Fifth more than under the
Fourteenth Amendment. Nor is it any longer open to question that it is within
the legislative power to fix maximum hours. Holden v. Hardy, 169
U.S. 366; Muller v. Oregon, 208
U.S. 412; Bunting v. Oregon, 243
U.S. 426; Baltimore & Ohio R. Co. v. Interstate Commerce Comm'n, supra. Similarly
the statute is not objectionable because applied alike to both men and women.
Cf. Bunting v. Oregon, 243
U.S. 426.
The Act is sufficiently definite to meet constitutional demands.
One who employs persons, without conforming to the prescribed wage and hour
conditions, to work on goods which he ships or expects to ship across
state lines,
is warned that he may be subject to the criminal penalties of the Act. No more
is required. Nash v. United
States, 229 U.S. 373, 377.
We have considered, but find it unnecessary to discuss other
contentions.
Reversed.
[1] Sec. 2. (a) The
Congress hereby finds that the existence, in industries engaged in commerce or
in the production of goods for commerce, of labor conditions detrimental to the
maintenance of the minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency,
and general well-being of workers (1) causes commerce and the channels and
instrumentalities of commerce to be used to spread and perpetuate such labor
conditions among the workers of the several States; (2) burdens commerce and
the free flow of goods in commerce; (3) constitutes an unfair method of
competition in commerce; (4) leads to labor disputes burdening and obstructing
commerce and the free flow of goods in commerce; and (5) interferes with the
orderly and fair marketing of goods in commerce.
Section 3 (b) defines "commerce" as
"trade, commerce, transportation, transmission, or communication among the
several States or from any State to any place outside thereof."
[2] Cf. Administrator's
Opinion, Interpretative Bulletin No. 5, 1940 Wage and Hour Manual. p. 131 et
seq.
[3] It may prohibit wholly
intrastate activities which, if permitted, would result in restraint of
interstate commerce. Coronado Coal Co. v. United
Mine Workers, 268 U.S. 295, 310; Local 167 v. United
States, 291 U.S. 293, 297. It may regulate the activities
of a local grain exchange shown to have an injurious effect on interstate
commerce. Chicago Board of Trade v. Olsen, 262
U.S. 1. It may regulate intrastate rates of interstate carriers
where the effect of the rates is to burden interstate commerce. Houston, E. & W. Texas Ry. Co. v. United States, 234 U.S. 342; Railroad Commission of Wisconsin v. Chicago, B. & Q.R. Co., 257
U.S. 563; United States v. Louisiana, 290
U.S. 70, 74; Florida v. United
States, 292 U.S. 1. It may compel the adoption of safety
appliances on rolling stock moving intrastate because of the relation to and
effect of such appliances upon interstate traffic moving over the same
railroad. Southern Ry. Co. v. United
States, 222 U.S. 20. It may prescribe maximum hours for
employees engaged in intrastate activity connected with the movement of any
train, such as train dispatchers and telegraphers. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co. v. Interstate Commerce Comm'n, 221
U.S. 612, 619.
World War Two raged on, of course.
By some accounts, it was on this day in 1941 when Adolf Hitler appointed Erwin Rommel to lead the German military mission to North Africa in aid of the Italians, who were getting the stuffing beat out of them by the British Commonwealth forces. Hans von Funck was already in Libya organizing the effort but was judged to lack enthusiasm for the project. Von Manstein was considered, but Rommel was chosen. Other accounts place the appointment on July 6.
Rommel would obtain fame there, but it's fame that outmatched his real record in many ways. Considered in a "good Nazi" by fans of the Wehrmacht, there's not real reason to excuse him for going along with Nazism as he did up until mid 1944, when he seems to have become a supporter of the July 1944 plot, even though he was not one of the direct actors in it. His real association with it, however remains unknown.
Rommel did prove to be a very effective commander in North Africa, commanding, as is sometimes forgotten, German and Italian forces by the end. Much of his success was due to the difficulties and delay in communications with Berlin, which allowed him to ignore instructions and act on his own. His success there did lead to his appointment in France as the general primarily responsible for the defense against the impending Allied landing. He was wounded while a passenger in a vehicle during an Allied strafing run, however, on July 17, so he was out of action soon after Operation Overlord, although the Germans were already in severe trouble in countering it by that time.
Rommel had been in the German military since age 18, having first been a cadet in a military school at that age in 1910 and having been commissioned the following year. He met his wife while a cadet, she was 17 years old at the time. She was perhaps uniquely, for what was to follow, of Polish and Italian descent. In spite of being engaged early, he formed a relationship with Walburga Stemmer, who was of working class background. That relationship ended up in producing a daughter, Gertrude. Because Stemmer was of working class background, and because he was already engaged to Lucia Maria Mollin, he did not marry Stemmer but carried on and married Mollin. Stemmer later lived in the Rommel household with Gertrude passed off as Rommel's niece, a story that was widely believed. Stemmer committed suicide in 1928 when Lucia was pregnant with the couple's first child, apparently being unable to accept that she and Rommel would never marry.
Rommel's record in regards to the Nazis is mixed. He clearly objected to some of their actions but he supported their early rise and his actions as a commander in some instances, in that context, are mixed. For whatever reason he seems to have come around to supporting, if not participating in, the July 20, 1944 plot against Hitler, although he was recovering from his wounds at the time and could not have been an active participant if he wanted to be. He none the less was implicated based on the belief that he was a fellow traveler with the plot, which he may have been. He committed suicide in October rather than suffer arrest, a peculiar option given to members of the German officer corps in some instances but which in this one cuts against the claims by some that his late actions were motivated by religious beliefs, suicide being contrary to Christian tenants.
In anticipation of entering the war, the United States split its fleet into three, the Atlantic, Pacific and Asiatic Fleets. It's odd to think of the Navy being one big fleet, but up until then, it was.
The war on the Atlantic was already on, of course, even if the U.S. was not yet in the war.
