Atkin v. KansasAtkin v. Kansas
after making the foregoing statement, delivered the opinion of the court.
The case has been stated quite fully, in order that there may be no dispute as to what is involved and what not involved in its determination.
No question arises here as to the power of a State, consistently with the Federal Constitution, to make it a criminal offense for an employer in purely private work in which the public has no concern, to permit or to require his employés to perform daily labor in excess of a prescribed number of hours. One phase of that general question was considered in
Holden
v.
Hardy,
As already stated, no such question is presented by the present record; for, the work to which the complaint refers'is that performed on behalf of a municipal corporation, not private work for private parties. Whether a similar statute, applied to laborers or employés in purely private work, would be constitutional, is a question of very large import, which we have no occasion now to determine or even to consider.
Assuming that the statute has application only to labor or work performed by or on behalf of the State, or by or on behalf of a municipal corporation, the defendant contends that it is in conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment. He insists that the Amendment guarantees to him the right to pursue any lawful calling, and to enter into all contracts that are proper, necessary or essential to the prosecution of such calling; and
“If a statute,” counsel observes, “such as the one under consideration is justifiable, should it not apply to all persons and to all vocations whatsoever? Why should such a law be limited to contractors with the State and its municipalities? . .' . Why should the law allow a contractor to agree with a laborer to shovel dirt for ten hours a day in performance of a private contract, and make exactly the same act under similar conditions a misdemeanor when done in the performance of a contract for the -construction of a public improvement? Why is the liberty with reference to contracting restricted in the one case and not in the other?”
These questions — indeed, the entire argument of defendant’s counsel — seem to attach too little consequence to the relation existing between a. State and its municipal corporations. Such corporations are the creatures, mere political subdivisions, of the State for the purpose of exercising a part of its powers. They may exert only such powers as are expressly granted to them, or such as may be necessarily implied from those granted. What they lawfully do of a public character is done under the sanction of the State. They are, in every essential sense, only auxiliaries of the State for the purposes of local government. They may be created, or, having been
The improvement of the Boulevard in question was a work
If, then, the work upon which the defendant employed Reese was of a public character, it necessarily follows that .the statute in question, in its application to those undertaking work for or on behalf of a municipal corporation of the State, does not infringe the personal liberty of any one. It may be that the State, in enacting the statute, intended to give its sanction to the view held by many, that, all things considered, the general welfare of employes, mechanics and workmen, upon whom rest a portion of the burdens of government, will be subserved if labor performed for. eight continuous hours was taken to be a full day’s work; that the restriction of a day’s work to that number of hours would promote morality, improve the physical and intellectual condition of laborers and workmen and enable them the better to discharge the duties appertaining to citizenship. We have no occasion here to consider these questions, or to determine upon which side is the sounder reason; for, whatever may have been the motives controlling the enactment of the statute in question, we can imagine no possible ground to dispute the power of the State to declare that no one undertaking work
for it or for one of its municipal agencies,
should permit or require an employé on such work to labor in excess of eight hours each day, and to inflict punishment upon those who are embraced by such regulations and yet disregard them. It cannot be deemed a part of the liberty of any contractor that
he
be allowed to do public work in any mode he may choose to adopt, without regard to the wishes of the State.. On the contrary, it belongs to the State, as the guardian and trustee for its people, and having control of its affairs, to pre
If it be contended to be the right of every one to dispose of his labor upon such terms as.he deems best — as undoubtedly it is — and that' to make it a criminal offense for a contractor for public work to permit or require his employé to perform labor upon that work in excess of eight hours each day, is in derogation of the liberty both of employés and employer, it is sufficient to answer that no employé is.entitled, of absolute right and as a part of his liberty, to perform labor for the State; and no contractor for public work can excuse a violation of his agreement with the State by doing that which the statute under which he proceeds distinctly and lawfully forbids him to do. - '
So, also, if it be said that a statute like the one before us is mischievous in its tendencies, the answer is that the responsibility therefor rests upon legislators, not upon the courts. ' No evils arising from such legislation could be more far-reaching than those that might come to our system of government if the judiciary, abandoning the sphere assigned to it by the fundamental law, should enter the domain of legislation, and upon grounds merely of justice or reason or wisdom annul . statutes that had received the sanction of the people’s representatives. We are reminded by counsel that it is the solemn duty of the courts in cases before them to guard the constitutional rights of the citizen against merely arbitrary power. That is unquestionably true. But it is equally true — indeed, the public interests imperatively demand — that legislative enactments should be recognized and enforced by the courts as embodying the will of the people, unless they are plainly and palpably, beyond all question, in violation of the fundamental law of the Constitution. It cannot be affirmed of
Equally without any foundation upon which -to rest is the proposition that the Kansas statute denied to the defendant or to his employe the equal protection of the laws. The rule of conduct prescribed by it applies alike to all who contract to do work on behalf either of the State or of its municipal subdivisions, and alike to all employed to perform labor on such work.
Some stress is. laid on the fact, stipulated by the parties for the purposes of this case, that the work performed by defendant’s employé is not dangerous to life, limb or health, and that daily labor on it for ten hours would not be injurious to him in any way. In the view we take of this case, such considerations are not controlling. We rest our decision upon the broad ground that the work being of' a public character,, absolutely under the control of the State and its municipal agents acting by its authority, it is for the State to prescribe the conditions under which it will permit work of that kind to be done. Its action touching such a matter is final so long as it does not, by its-regulations, infringe the personal rights of others; and that has not been done.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of Kansas is
' Affirmed. ■