Show THE EIGHT HOUR DECISION the supreme court decision sustaining the utah eight hour law IS 18 regarded as one of great importance to the industrial and labor interests odthe of the whole country workingmen Vor kingmen have for a long time been engaged in an agitation for a limited working day but the courts have nearly always held that legislation in this direction is a violation of the constitutional stipulation that no person shall be deprived of life liberty or property without due process of law it has been argued that no legislation can properly interfere with a mans right to contract for his own labor the reasoning is plausible enough but it overlooks the fact that the voice of the laborer is seldom if ever heard in the matter and that the power of determining the length of the working day under existing conditions is entirely in other hands tt it is against this supposed wrong that the agitation in favor of the laborers has been directed and it is in reply to this that the rather irrelevant argument has been used that legislators cannot infringe upon personal liberty the supreme court decision referred to is contrary to previous findings and will result it is believed in renewed efforts for a more general limitation of the working day if the principle is recognized that the state has a right to say that unhealthful labor must be limited to EL a certain number of hours a day that principle will be extended to cover other ground than that occupied by mines and smelters shelters sm elters and in some cases perhaps make the working day even less than eight hours |