380
The Green Bag
as to those which shall govern in the exercise of their private functions. As further indicating the real conflict in these cases, we cite People v. Con struction Co., 175 N. Y. 84, 1903, and United States v. Ollinger, 55 Fed. Rep. 959, 1893. Other cases opposed to the general rule are: Wheeling Bridge & Terminal Co. v. Gilmore, 8 O. C. C. 658, 1894; Vogt v. Milwaukee, 99 Wis. 258, 1898; Fiskev. People, 188 I11. 206, 1900. 2.
LAWS WHICH ARE DESIGNED TO PROTECT WOMEN AND CHILDREN.
That laws regulating and restricting the hours of labor of children are valid is now too well settled to admit of dis pute. We shall, therefore, do no more than state the reason for so holding, which is that children are wards of the state and as such entitled to protection. Laws thus affecting women engaged in certain occupations are in force in some sixteen states of the Union, but the ad judications are few. The earliest re ported case is that of Commonwealth v. Hamilton Mfg. Co., 120 Mass. 383, 1876. The statute prohibited the em ployment of all persons under age and of all women in any manufacturing establishment for more than ten hours a day or sixty hours a week. This was upheld, but the decision is somewhat peculiar. The substance of the opinion is that it does not forbid any person to work as many hours as he pleases and that it merely provides that in an em ployment which the legislature evi dently deemed dangerous to the health of children and women they should not labor more than so many hours, the idea presumably being that persons might engage in other work if they wished to work more than sixty hours. The next case in point of time was Commonwealth v. Beatty, 15 Sup. Ct. Pa. 5, 1900. The statute was similar
to that in the preceding case except that the number of hours was twelve. The Court makes some very strong and sweeping remarks which could with equal propriety be applied to all classes of persons. Thus the Court says, "A prohibition upon physical exertion which is likely to result in enfeebled and dis eased bodies, and thereby directly and consequentially affects the health and safety of the community, cannot in any just sense be deemed a taking or appro priation of property." And again, "The public good is entitled to protection and consideration, and if in order to effectuate that object there must be enforced protection to the individual such individual must submit to such enforced protection for the public good." This seems to be sound doctrine which recognizes that the welfare of the individual tends to become the welfare of the public. The legislature of Penn sylvania undoubtedly felt that this is true where numerous women and chil dren are employed in occupations not becoming their kind. We can readily conceive of an entire community of miners, for instancej engaged in dan gerous and unhealthy employment, and in such a case the individual welfare certainly approaches and tends to be come the public welfare. And this applies as well to men as to women. In Wenham v. Nebraska, 65 Neb. 394, 1902, a law was considered which was taken from, and was practically a reenactment of, the statute in the last case. Here the Court said that it was only a fair and reasonable exercise of the police power which the physical differences between man and woman justify, and that it does not prohibit the right of contract but merely regu lates it in a reasonable manner. In the case of State v. Buchanan, 29 Wash. 602, 1902, a law forbidding the employment
