an independent position in life, she is not upon an equality. Differentiated by these matters from the other sex, she is properly placed in a class by herself, and legislation designed for her protection may be sustained, even when like legislation is not necessary for men and could not be sustained. It is impossible to close one's eyes to the fact that she still looks to her brother and depends upon him. Even though all restrictions on political, personal, and contractual rights were taken away, and she stood, as far as statutes are concerned, upon an absolutely equal plane with him, it would still be true that she is so constituted that she will rest upon and look to him for protection; that her physical structure and a proper discharge of her maternal functions-having in view not merely her own health, but the well-being of her race-justify legislation to protect her from the greed as well as the passion of man. The limitations which this statute places upon her contractual powers, upon her right to agree with her employer as to the time she shall labor, are not imposed solely for her benefit, but also largely for the benefit of all. Many words cannot make this plainer. The two sexes differ in structure of body, in the functions to be performed by each, in the amount of physical strength, in the capacity for long-continued labor, particularly when done standing, the influence of vigorous health upon the future well-being of the race, the self-reliance which enables one to assert full rights, and in the capacity to maintain the struggle for subsistence. This difference justifies a difference in legislation and upholds that which is designed to compensate for some of the burdens which rest upon her.

We have not referred in this discussion to the denial of the elective franchise in the State of Oregon, for while that may disclose a lack of political equality in all things with her brother, that is not of itself decisive. The reason runs deeper, and rests in the inherent difference between the two sexes, and in the different functions in life which they perform.

For these reasons, and without questioning in any respect the decision in Lochner vs. New York, we are of the opinion that it cannot be adjudged that the act in question is in conflict with the Federal Constitution, so far as it respects the work of a female in a laundry, and the judgment of the Supreme Court of Oregon is affirmed.

True copy.
Test

JAMES H. MCKINNEY, Clerk, Supreme Court, United States.

Of course this decision does not mean that any or every law passed by a legislature limiting hours for women's work will stand state tests of constitutionality, or legislative "jokers," or nullification amendments, or non-enforcement. At this writing the Illinois ten-hour law is before the State Supreme Court,* and counsel for the League in this case has filed the results of two years special research made

*Upheld by decision for which see first editorial "Highways and Byways" in this magazine.

on the subject of fatigue by Josephine C. Goldmark, secretary of the League committee on legislation. The Foundation established by Mrs. Russell Sage granted an appropriation toward this investigation which covered medical and social literature of many countries and the collection of opinions and statistics. Briefly it is the consensus of opinion that there is a toxin of fatigue; to the extent that overworked women fail to throw it off naturally, they are poisoned by it. Moreover unmitigated industrial conditions tend to make more women sufferers from nervous troubles, make them less able to resist diseases or temptations, shorten their efficiency, and injure children born to them. In 1895 the Illinois Supreme Court decided that any restriction of working hours for adult women conflicted with the Federal constitution, but that was before Justice Brewer's decision. ruled otherwise.

The League's Handbook of Child Labor legislation kept up to date by supplements is an important publication. Regarding "White Lists," an official report says:

In an industrial period like the present only a strongly organized body of public opinion counts on behalf of the working boys, girls and youths, and the burdened mothers of young children striving to support the family. None of these can defend their own interest under the pressure of competition, the effort for cheapness at all costs, and the flood of immigrants bringing an ever lower standard of life.

For creating a stable body of public opinion, nothing has been invented more effective than the white list of the Consumers' League. The process of making the list and keeping it up-to-date is in itself a continuing educational force.

A white list is no sooner published than it becomes a means of getting knowledge not otherwise obtainable. For every merchant not included volunteers facts about every one in it, and also all the favorable facts about himself.

According to the standard of the Consumers' League of New York City the working day consists of nine working hours. The minimum weekly wage for clerks eighteen years old who have had one year's experience is $6.00. Neither provision is satisfactory, but each marks an improvement over the usages of past years. And each is better than the

corresponding provision in cities which have no white list. The importance of a minimum wage and a maximum working day are only beginning to be generally recognized. They are invaluable as means of combating disease and vice.

Every city as large as Cleveland, Ohio, and Detroit, Michigan, should have a white list Until one is formed, no one really knows what wages are paid, what the hours of labor are in the stores, whether clerks are free to use the seats which the law may require.

In a city in which there has never been a white list, the procedure for establishing one is as follows: A visiting committee is formed consisting of two influential, persuasive women who have patience and leisure. In New York City this work has been done for eight consecutive years by the same women, who spend one afternoon every week in visiting merchants by appointment. They know accurately the conditions in white list stores. They discuss on friendly terms, such problems as early closing at Christmas and on summer Saturday afternoons. They investigate the complaints of employes as to infractions of the labor law and of the League's standard. Information which comes to them is the strictly confidential property of the governing board.

The success of the white list depends upon the patience, good sense and continuity of this committee; upon the extent to which the white list is made known, and the degree to which the public gradually comes to depend upon it for guidance.

After nearly twenty years of faithful work, the Consumers' League of the City of New York has on its white list fifty-eight merchants. Certain famous stores are still missing from it, because wages are below the standard, or a summer Saturday half holiday is not granted, or for some other substantial reason. No merchant's name is placed upon the white list without a full year of careful observation; and every claim to excellence must be corroborated by employes.

Most fundamental of all requirements is obedience to the labor law provisions applying to stores. Every item of this law has to be thoroughly familiar to the visiting committee and the employers, and no subject comes up more frequently in the work of the visiting committee.

League

By Jane A. Stewart

HAT women workers can deal intelligently and effec

tively with their employers and work together for their own betterment and progress is declared to be fully proven by the latest and newest of women's national societies the National Woman's Trade Union League.

The exigencies of industry called it into being and the alleged necessity for a union of the women who toil keep it moving onward. All working women are eligible to membership; and its ranks are recruited from every phase of industry in which women through stress of social and. industrial development have been engaged. It is only a few years since a group of thoughtful women who are not wage-earners, but who have declared themselves unwilling that those who toil should suffer from unjust conditions, associated themselves with the avowed object of easing the burdens of the toilers, and of protecting the coming generation from the crushing pressure of unreasonably long hours, miserably low wages, and other adverse conditions of industry. They had come to believe that much of the women workers' disadvantage is due to lack of organization, to the workers' ignorance of the fact that they are gradually becoming a menace to the whole working class; and to the fact that the women are without the protection of the ballot and are not yet the equal of men under the law.

Acting from these premises, the association of women resolved to reach the hearts and minds of the toilers in the factories, the stores and offices.

"Women have been slower than men," they said, "to realize the need of collective action. Unfortunately they have been the underbidders in the labor market. The individual worker must take herself seriously and recognize herself as a conscious part of the great labor movement."

The idea took shape gradually. When the convention of the American Federation of Labor met in Boston in 1903, the National League of Woman's Trade Unions. was formally perfected. Working state branches of the League followed in Illinois, at Chicago, in 1904; in New York City in 1905; and in St. Louis in 1907. In all of these state branches membership in the League is extended to a limited number of deeply interested women concerned in social and philanthropic movements, but the number of working women who may belong is unlimited. The scattered groups of women workers were thus brought into effective cohesion, and coöperation. The unions of women who are allied include overall makers, milliners, buttonhole makers, several departments of garment makers, bookbinders and many others.

The objects of the National Woman's Trade Union League are six: The organization of all workers into trades unions; equal pay for equal work; eight hour day; a minimum wage scale; full citizenship for women; and all the principles embodied in the economic program of the American Federation of Labor. In the interest of the public health and morals it is regarded as indispensable that women be organized for the protection of their hours of work, their wages, the treatment accorded them in the workroom, and their influence upon the conditions of industry as purchasers of the products.

Until 1907, the United States was the only nation on earth in which any court had held that the hours of work of women cannot be limited by statute. This curious pronouncement came from the Supreme Court of Illinois, which in 1895 declared unconstitutional the statute restricting the hours of work to eight in one day and to forty-eight in one week. The court invoked the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, holding that women are citizens in the sense that their freedom. of contract cannot be interfered with, although in Illinois their political rights as citizens go no further than the