88 F. 891 | N.D. Cal. | 1898
The defendant has been convicted of the violation of “an act relating to the limitation of the hours of daily service of laborers and mechanics employed upon the publio works of the United States and of the District of Columbia,” approved August 1, 1892 (2 Supp. Rev. St. [2d Ed.] p. 62), and has interposed a motion for an arrest of judgment. Section 1 of the act referred to makes it unlawful for any officer of the United States government or of the District of Columbia, or for any contractor or subcontractor whose duty it shall be to employ, direct, or control the services of laborers or mechanics upon public works of the United States or of the District of Columbia, “to require or permit any such laborer or mechanic to work more than eight hours in any calendar day except in case of extraordinary emergency.” By section 2 of the act it Is provided “that any officer or agent of the government of the United States or of the District of Columbia, or any contractor or subcontractor whose duty it shall be to employ, direct, or control any laborer or mechanic employed upon any of the public works of the United States or of the District of Columbia, who shall intentionally violate any provision of this act, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor.”
The information charges that the defendant was a contractor upon public works of the United States, to wit, the new post office of the United States,in the city and county of San Francisco; that as such contractor its duty was to employ, direct, and control laborers employed and working thereon; and that the defendant did on the 1st day of December, 1897, in violation of the act of congress above referred to, “require and permit said laborers to work more than eight hours in the calendar day last aforesaid, to wit, nine hours and forty minutes in such day, upon said contract and public works, there being then and there no case of extraordinary emergency for the employment of such laborers for the length of time last aforesaid, or for any length of time in excess of said eight hours in said calendar day.”
The motion in arrest of judgment is based upon two grounds: First, it is claimed that the information does not charge that the defendant intentionally required or permitted the laborers, employed by it upon the public works referred to in the information, to labor more than eight hours in each day; second, because it is not alleged in the information, nor was the fact proved upon the trial, that the United States has exclusive jurisdiction over the land upon which the post office referred to in the information is being constructed.
“But although the United States may well purchase and hold lands for public purposes, within the territorial limits of a state, this does not, of itself, oust the jurisdiction of sovereignty of such state over the lands so purchased. It remains until the state has relinquished its authority over the land, either expressly or by necessary implication.”
In view of this principle of constitutional law, it is now urged that this court is without jurisdiction to pronounce judgment upon the verdict, and that the act of congress should be construed as only applying to public works upon land over which the United States has the right, under the constitution, to exercise exclusive political jurisdiction and dominion; that is to say, that it should be construed as applying only to public works in the District of Columbia, or in the territories of the United States, or upon lands purchased by the United States with the consent of the state, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings. In support of this position, counsel for the defendant has argued, with great earnestness, that, unless so construed, the statute cannot be upheld, because congress has no power to legislate in regard to the number of hours laborers shall be permitted to work each day in places or upon land not within the exclusive political jurisdiction of the United States. The statute under consideration, however, by its express terms, is applicable only to public works of the United Stated and of the District of Columbia; so that the question presented here is not whether congress possesses the power to legislate generally in regard to the number of hours laborers shall be permitted to work in any one day when engaged in the construction of some building or in some other employment over which the United States has no right to exercise any supervision or control, but rather this: Has congress the power to prescribe the terms and conditions under which labor shall be performed in the construction of public works of the United States, and without reference to the fact whether such public works are or are not upon land over which the national government exercises exclusive political jurisdiction? • I entertain no doubt of the authority of congress in this respect. Public works are instrumentalities for the execution of the powers of government. In the construction of its public works, the United States exercises a power which belongs to it as a sovereign nation, and, as a necessary incident of its sovereignty, has
“Tno powers oí the general government and of the state, although Doth exist and are exercised within the same territorial limits, are yet separate and distinct sovereignties, acting separately and independently of each other, within their respective spheres.”
The motion will he denied.