dren and apprentices shall be suitable. To offset the tendency to substitute young girls and inexperienced workers for adults in trades requiring little skill, it has been found necessary to specify the length of apprenticeship and the proportion of apprentices allowed.
There are two methods of operation: the flat-rate law, which prescribes a legal minimum in the statute itself, and the more com- mon type which provides for a board or commission to fix rates after proper investigation. The commissions are generally unsalaried. Their jurisdiction extends over persons covered by the law with full power of investigation. A subordinate board is usually provided for, which is representative of employers, employees and the public. It must make a report with recommendations to the commission, which the latter accepts or refers back. When the report has been accepted and a public hearing has been held, the recommendations are pro- mulgated as orders. Provisions for a court review are customarily included. A new application of the police power is involved in the constitutionality of the minimum-wage legislation. The question was settled definitely by the Supreme Court decision in the famous Oregon case (1917) which held the law constitutional on the same ground on which laws restricting hours of labour for women and children had been sustained.
Hours of Labour. Beginning with Illinois in 1903, the 8-hour standard for children under 16 has been established in 25 states and the District of Columbia, with certain exemptions in a few states. Other states have less favourable laws, especially some of the southern states, which still allow children to work legally ii hours a day. To meet the arguments of employers who opposed restriction of hours of labour of children on the ground that it put them at a disadvantage with their competitors in neighbouring states, Congress in 1916 enacted a measure which forbade the transportation in interstate commerce of the prod- ucts of factories or mines on which children between 14 and 16 had worked more than eight hours a day or more than six days a week or at night. The law was declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court as an undue extension of the power to regulate interstate commerce. In 1919 Congress again enacted a law containing similar standards based on the taxing power, which levies a tax of 10% on the annual net profits of any con- cern which employs children in violation of the above standards.
By 1920 only six states, in most of which comparatively few women were employed industrially, had placed no restrictions on women's hours of work; many had limited hours to eight or nine a day; and a large number had a weekly limit of less than 60 hours. The majority of statutes fix the same daily and weekly maximum hours for all occupations covered, and generally include the principal industrial occupations for women except those in homes and agri- culture. In several states the law applies only to cities within a given classification. In only a few cases, however, do the laws define the time during which the work period must fall by naming the spread of the hours allowed, by fixing opening and closing hours or by forbidding night-work. In detail the statutes vary from a 12- to an 8-hour-day minimum in 10 jurisdictions and from a 60- to a 48-hour week. About one-third of the laws permit overtime. Re- cently a few states have adopted a more progressive method of regulating hours by replacing the flat-rate law with statutes con- taining the general principle that a woman is not to be employed for any period of time dangerous to her health, safety and welfare. A commission is given power to determine, after investigation, maxi- mum periods for different industries and even for different localities.
Though the constitutionality of the lo-hour day was established in the Oregon case (Mutter v. Oregon, 28 Sup. Ct., 324, 1908), the reasonableness of the 8-hour day was still in doubt until the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the California law on the same ground of public health. The laws have been attacked also on the ground of class legislation, but the courts have given little weight to this objection, asserting the freedom of the Legislature to use discretion in enlarging the scope of laws or to single out groups most in need of protection.
Statutes regarding the limitation of hours of men are more re- stricted in scope. In 1912 Congress required that an 8-hour clause be inserted in all contracts involving the employment of labourers or mechanics when made by the Federal Government, its territories or the District of Columbia, and extended the provision to post- office employees. On declaration of the President, violation is excusable for certain emergencies and extraordinary events. During the World War Congress empowered the President to suspend the law in case of national emergency, with pay at the rate of time-and- a-half for all work in excess of eight hours. This privilege was fre- quently exercised. In 1915 Federal legislation with regard to the amount of work which might be exacted took a new turn in the appropriation bills forthe army and navy. Provisions were included against time studies, bonuses or cash rewards except for suggestions resulting in improvements in service. Over half of the states and many cities have 8-hour laws for employees on public works.
With regard to private employment, progress has been made
mainly through collective bargaining, with a few important ex- ceptions. In 1916 the Federal statute applying to railway employees on interstate lines and in the District of Columbia was supplemented by the Adamson law, which provides the basic 8-hour day for rail- way trainmen. About a dozen states regulate hours of street-rail- way employees to 10 or 12 a day, while Massachusetts has fixed a 9-hour day which must fall within 1 1 consecutive hours. A few cities, also, have regulated the hours of service on street railways. Regulation of hours in water transportation is found in the Federal Act of 1913, limiting hours of deck officers in port to 9 and at sea to 12 except in cases of emergency. The Federal Act of 1915, known as the " Seamen's Act," provides that when a vessel is in a safe harbour, 9 hours, inclusive of anchor watch, shall constitute a day's work. By Jan. 1920 the 16 states in which the mining in- dustry is important limited hours in the various classes of mine work to 8 in one day, with special provision in a few laws for additional hours at the time of changing shifts.
With regard to regulation of hours in factories and workshops, two states, Mississippi in 1912 and Oregon in 1913, adopted the ip- hour day, with certain exceptions, for all classes of employees in certain manufacturing industries. The Oregon statute permits three hours' overtime at time-and-a-half pay, and the Mississippi Act allows 20 minutes' overtime on each of the first five days of the week and deducts this time from the 10 hours of the sixth day. In the Oregon case (Bunting v. Oregon, 37 Sup. Ct., 435, 1917) the con- stitutionality of the lo-hour daily limit for adult males was assured and the way was opened for much larger regulation of men's work. A small number of states also regulate the hours of employment of adult males in a few specified employments.
In spite of the considerable development of maximum hour regulation in the United States, not much attention has been paid to the question of legal rest periods. Several states have laws re- quiring daily rest periods; 12 states forbid certain forms of night work by women, and a few others shorten the number, of hours of night work; 40 states have prohibited night work for children under 16. While more than a dozen states have made Saturday afternoon a legal holiday, practically none has made effective provision for enforcement. By 1920 six states and the Federal Government had passed laws embodying the principle of one day's rest in seven, only three of which are effective from the point of view of enforce- ment or number of industries included. Sunday laws have been upheld almost universally by the courts, formerly on religious grounds and in later years as a legitimate use of the police power. In the only test case of one-day's-rest-in-seven laws, the N.Y. State Court of Appeals (People v. Klenck Packing Co., 214 N.Y., 121, 1915) sustained it as a police-power regulation. Classifications were like- wise upheld as meeting modern industrial conditions.
Unemployment. Private employment agencies situated in industrial and railway centres have long been a means of connect- ing the man with the job. The abuses of these profit-making agencies have resulted in restrictive legislation designed to prevent fraud and extortion and to ensure moral surroundings. These laws usually require owners of private employment agen- cies to deposit a bond with the State Department of Labor or the city authorities and to secure a licence. Twelve states prohibit the location of such offices in saloons, and several others forbid association with lodging-houses, restaurants or gambling-places. Frequently the sending of minors and women to immoral resorts is forbidden. Fees are regulated as to maximum amount. Some laws specify that all advertisements or other information must be truthful. Several states require records, but, with the exception of New York, they are rarely comprehensive enough to be valuable. There was almost unani- mous testimony of investigators and public officials up to 1921 that these laws had not been successful in eradicating abuses, and there arose a widespread movement to abolish them alto- gether. The state of Washington took the initiative by prohibit- ing the collection of fees from workers by an employment agent. The U.S. Supreme Court, however, held the law unconstitu- tional as " arbitrary " and " oppressive," an undue restriction on the liberty of the appellants, and therefore a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. In 1919 the Wisconsin Legislature gave the State Industrial Commission discretionary power to refuse licences to private employment agencies if the public bureau in the district is sufficient to supply the needs.
At the time of the entrance of the United States into the World War there were between 80 and 90 public employment exchanges maintained by 23 states and more than a dozen cities. In 1920 44 states and the District of Columbia were cooperating with the U.S. Employment Service. The older laws which create only a state employment office and make no
