delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Court of Industrial Relations Act was approved January 23, 1920. Laws of Kansas, 1920, Special Session,
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c. 29. The purpose of
the
statute is to ensure continuity of operation in coal mining and other businesses declared to be affected with a public interest.
1
The means provided for accomplishing this is a system of compulsory arbitration of industrial disputes. The instrument is the so-called industrial court. Upon it is conferred power to investigate all matters involved in such controversies; to make findings thereon; to issue such orders as it may deem needful, fixing the wages to be paid, the hours of work, the rules for work, and the working and living conditions. The provisions in aid of the enforcement of this system are both comprehensive and detailed. The employer is prohibited, among other things, from limiting or ceasing operations with a view to defeating the purpose of the statute. Likewise, every association of persons
(e. g.,
trade unions) is prohibited from acting to that end. In effect, strikes and lockouts, the boycott and picketing, are made unlawful. Any person violating any provision of the statute, or any order of the so-called court, is declared guilty of a misdemeanor. Some of the provisions of the act were considered in
Howat
v.
Kansas,
Section 19 provides that any officer of a union of workmen engaged in an industry within the provisions of the act, who shall wilfully use the power incident to his official position to influence any other person to violate any provision of the statute or any valid order of the Court of
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Industrial Relations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony punishable by a fine not to exceed $5,000, or by imprisonment at hard labor, not to exceed two years, or by both such fine and imprisonment. Under this section an information was filed against Dorchy, a union official, for calling a strike in a coal mine. He was found guilty. The judgment entered was affirmed by the highest court of the State,
After the judgment under review was entered in the Supreme Court of Kansas, this Court declared, in the
Wolff Packing Co. Case, supra,
p. 544, that the system of compulsory arbitration as applied to packing plants, violates the Federal Constitution. For the reasons there set forth, it is unconstitutional, also, as applied to the coal mines of that State. The question suggests itself whether § 19 has not, therefore, necessarily fallen as a part of the system of compulsory arbitration. If so, there is no occasion to' consider the specific objection to the provisions of that section. This Court has power not only to correct errors in the judgment entered below, but, in the exercise of its appellate jurisdiction, to make such disposition of the case as justice may now require.
Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Ry. Co.
v.
Dennis,
A statute bad in part is not necessarily void in its entirety. Provisions within the legislative power may stand
*290
if separable from the bad.
Berea College
v.
Kentucky,
The task of determining the intention of the state legislature in this respect, like the usual function of interpreting a state statute, rests primarily upon the state court. Its decision as to the severability of a provision is conclusive upon this Court.
Gatewood
v.
North Carolina,
The Supreme Court of Kansas has already dealt, to some extent, with the effect of our decision upon other sections of the act. When a, motion was made there in the
Wolff Packing Co. Case
to spread the mandate of this Court upon its record, the state court held that the order of the Court of Industrial Relations under review remains in force in so far as it regulates hours of labor and weekly rest periods.
Reversed.
Notes
Section 2 of the statute, as enacted, conferred upon the Court of Industrial Relations the functions theretofore performed by the Public Utilities Commission. These functions were restored to a Public Utilities Commission by c. 260, Laws of 1921. There was conferred upon the Court of Industrial Relations by c. 262 of the Laws of 1921 the functions theretofore performed by the Commissioner of Labor and Industry, and by c. 263 of the Laws of 1921 the functions theretofore performed by the Industrial Welfare Commission. These latter powers were also enlarged.
Section 28: “ If any section or provision of this act shall be found invalid by any court, it shall be conclusively presumed that, this act would have been passed by the legislature without such invalid section or provision, and the act as a whole shall not be declared invalid by reason of the fact that one or more sections or provisions may be found to be invalid by any court.”
The action of the state court has been brought here for review by proceedings entered February 16, 1924, and not yet disposed'of.
