former class, the law declares that the business of said company shall be "to teach any useful profession, trade or art and to give instruction in any branch of learning practical or theoretical." Such a corporation is governed and controlled by the general law of private corporations, and under the common rules of construction such corporations might do any acts promotive of the corporate purpose and not inconsistent with the general laws or the public policy of the State.

There being no law in the State prescribing or limiting the the power of conferring degrees or issuing diplomas therefor, and there being no doubt as to the profit of such transactions, as herein above described, it surely does not require any stretching of power under modern usage for an educational corporation to sell for profit its degrees. Certain it is that sales are thus made under the color of legal authority, and the high officers of the State have not seen fit to challenge this power so generally exercised.

And where the State says "You may organize and operate for profit educational corporations," it would not be an easy matter to forfeit charters granted for that purpose because the powers are being used for that purpose in accordance with the laws of trade.

Educational corporations for general welfare are provided by general law for any association of individuals (five or more), who desire to be incorporated for the general welfare of society and not for individual profit. They obtain their charter the same way, however, as corporations for profit. Such a corporation is expressly invested, "with power to confer degrees." Dividends of profit are forbidden among members, but there is no express statute forbidding any one person to appropriate and use the name and powers of the corporation for gain. Our State records show hundreds of charters issued every year, which are not known thereafter as active organizations in the Counties where they have their official residence. Indeed corporations of both kinds are often organized by mere dummies-irresponsible persons who will transfer or surrender their chartered rights for small sums. It is a comparatively easy matter therefore for a shrewd dealer to get control of the hull of the corporation and use it for his own private purposes.

In short, corporate powers granted in modern times in our American States, merely for the asking, and for almost every imaginable purpose, are being prostituted and abused in matters.

of education as well as of trade and commerce; and until some officer is charged with the special duty of inquiring into these corporations, or some person sufficiently interested in a pecuniary way, or some one with the public interest at heart, moves for their suppression, they will continue to practice their fraud upon the credulous public with impunity.

The temptation for the exercise of these powers and functions by Colleges of Law has been greatly increased by the statutory provisions of some of the States, authorizing schools of law to grant licenses to practice law in the courts of the State; and thus not only degrees but licenses to practice law have been offered and sold in some States.

The State Bar Association in Tennessee, after several years of faithful and praiseworthy effort, has at last succeeded in persuading the Legislature to enact a law committing the whole subject of admission to the Bar to the Supreme Court and a Board of Examiners to be appointed by the same. In this way this source of revenue to the "fake" institutions is cut off in this State. But the revenue from the sale of degrees will doubtless continue so long as the degreeless public can be humbugged by these plausible pretenders, or until some statute is passed establishing a standard for these degrees and vesting some academy, university or other educational body with power of supervision over this much abused privilege.

Henry H. Ingersoll.

Published monthly during the Academic year, by students of the Yale Law School. P. O. Address, Box 735, Yale Station, New Haven, Conn.

If a subscriber wishes his copy of the JOURNAL discontinued at the expiration of his subscription, notice to that effect should be sent; otherwise it is assumed that a continuation of the subscription is desired.

At the annual meeting of the Board, held June 2, 1903, the following officers were elected for the ensuing year: Chairman, John Harold Sears, St. Louis, Mo.; Business manager, Cameron Beach Waterman, Detroit, Mich.; Assistant Business Manager, Charles Driver Francis, Winchester, Tenn.

COMMENT.

CONSTITUTIONALITY OF LAWS REGULATING HOURS OF EMPLOYMENT.

The constant exercise, in an ever-varying sphere, of the State's police power, by its law-making body for uses of public interest and public welfare has been marked during the generation just passed. And in no branch of this important and present-day subject has

this so-called assumption of paternalism been, perhaps, so widespread as in the enactment of laws to better the condition of the employed by regulating their mode of labor in many ways. However humanitarian may have been the legislative motives in this respect, it is certain that the courts have been vastly divided in their reception of these enactments. The difference of opinion between the authorities has been especially wide when the constitutionality of laws intended to shorten the hours of work for those engaged in unhealthy and hazardous occupations, has been at stake. Nor does the present trend of judicial decision bear toward reconciliation on this point, which, because of the present rivalry between capital and labor, is of great interest and impor

tance.

In view of the added safeguard thrown around the liberty of contract by Article I of the 14th Amendment to the Federal Constitution, many courts have held such statutes to be unconstitutional, because "abridging the privileges and immunities of American citizens" and authorizing "the taking of property without due process of law." The Supreme Court of Illinois, in a case decided in 1895, held that a statute prohibiting the employment of females for more than eight hours a day was unconstitutional, both as special legislation and as violating the right to contract for labor. It was then said that "when an owner is deprived of one of the attributes of property, like the right to make contracts, he is deprived of his property within the meaning of the Constitution." Ritchie v. People, 150 Ill. 98. Closely following this decision, in the same State, a provision in a contract between a city and a contractor on public work that laborers should not be employed for more than eight hours a day, was held to be invalid. Fiske v. People, 188 Ill. 205. Also Treat v. People, 195 Ill. 196; McChesney v. People, 200 Ill. 146; and more recently Glover v. People, 66 N. E. Rep. 820. And in Colorado, Chief Justice Campbell, in a most lucid opinion, declared that an act regulating the hours of employment in mines and smelters was void as an unwarrantable exercise of the State's police power. He quoted with approval a dictum of Judge Christiancy in People v. Jackson & M. Plank Road Co., 9 Mich. 285: "Powers which can only be justified on this specific ground (that of police regulation) and which otherwise would have been prohibited by the constitution can be such only as are so clearly necessary to the safety, comfort and well-being of society or so imperatively required by the public necessity as to lead to the rational conclusion that the framers of the constitution could not, as men of ordinary prudence and foresight, have intended to prohibit their exercise." In re Morgan, 58 Pac. 1071; also In re Eight Hour Law, 21 Col. 29. A statute which provided that for all classes of laborers except those employed in farm and domestic work, a working day should not exceed eight hours, was also held to be unconstitutional. Low v. Rees Printing Co., 41 Neb. 127. The courts of Ohio and Cali

fornia have also approved these decisions. In the former State, an act limiting the number of hours on public work to eight hours per diem was held invalid; in the latter, a city ordinance to the same effect was disapproved. Ex parte Kuback, 85 Cal. 274; Cleveland v. Clements Bros. Const. Co,, 65 N. E. 885. Both of these decisions were based on the violation of the provisions of the 14th amendment.

The New York Court of Appeals, in the case of People v. Orange County Road Const. Co., (decided on April 1st, 1903, and not yet officially reported), have also taken the same stand. In that case, contractors working under a contract with the County were indicted for the violation of an eight hour statute. This law was held to be unconstitutional, by the court of last resort, as a police regulation which had no relation to the public morals, the public health or the public safety, on any of which grounds it' might have been sustained. The court was of the opinion that the State should not attempt to draw a line between itself and other employers. When the public work is done by the State itself, it may prescribe the manner of its prosecution, but when it is sub-let to contractors, the government of their employees should be left to them, in the absence of contract stipulations. This would seem to bear out the case of United States v. Martin, 94 U. S. 400. where, under an act of Congress, it was decided that the United States might regulate the hours of its servants, as the statute was merely declaratory between principal and agent.

*

* *

On the other hand, an array of authorities not less worthy of consideration has affirmed the constitutionality of such legislative acts. The Supreme Court of Utah has twice upheld a statute regulating the hours of employment in mines and smelters, similar to that criticized by In re Morgan, supra. State v. Holden, 14 Utah 71; Short v. Mining Co., 57 Pac. Rep. 720. On appeal, the first of these cases reached the Supreme Court of the United States, where a divided bench confirmed the State decision. On delivering the majority opinion, Mr. Justice Brown said: "The right to contract is itself subject to certain limitations which the State may impose in the exercise of its police powers Where the public health demands that one party to the contract shall be protected against himself, the State still retains an interest in his welfare, however reckless he may be." Holden v. Hardy, 169 U. S. 366. While the Supreme Court did not criticize the State authorities which denied the validity of time laws of this character. its dicta may be relied upon, perhaps, to show that the highest court of the land regards these acts as valid exercises of the police power. It may be worthy of note that Mr. Justice Peckham, whose contributions to the "Doctrine of Constitutional Protection of Liberty of Contract" have been extensive, dissented from the majority of the court. But, undoubtedly, the Utah statute here involved could be supported on another ground, for the constitution of that State especially gave the legislature power to pass acts