ALL IN A YEAR
All In a Year LAST YEAR, after the United States Senate had voted 46 to 40, to keep Lorimer in his besmirched seat, La Follette's ventured this editorial prediction: "Lorimer holds his seat. But...
...can force the original law upon the ballot and have a vote of the people thereon...
...The exploitation of women workers is likewise one of our most pressing industrial problems...
...the errors I have called attention to were traceable to earlier action of the Convention, and not to the final action...
...A majority of the votes cast upon each amendment and not necessarily a majority of all the votes cast, will carry the amendment...
...petition is necessary for amending the constitution...
...All except the liquor license amendment are to be in one column and numbered from 1 to 41...
...Everywhere in the country the significance of this reversal of doctrine by the Illinois court was recognized...
...It was not only that the judges carried on their thinking processes only in the terms of the rich and powerful but also that they were absorbed in technicalities and detached from the vital living facts of the present day...
...First: A 10 per cent...
...In the case of women workers at least the "freedom of contract" theory is being abandoned...
...Public opinion has been relentlessly at work...
...Third: The indirect initiative on laws provides for 3 per cent...
...What will another year bring forth...
...Recently the attitude of the courts has greatly changed...
...Your article as a whole was informing and accurate...
...In 1895 the Illinois Supreme Court declared invalid an eight-hour law for women employed in factories...
...Now Lorimer is ousted...
...can petition for the original bill that the original 3 per cent...
...This was in the draft that was passed on second reading, but upon third reading, this was stricken out...
...Second: There is no indirect initiative on constitutional amendments at all...
...The "Ritchie Cases," old and new, became famous...
...petitioned for, or can petition for that bill plus any amendments that have been agreed to by either branch of the legislature...
...As a matter of fact, this doctrine of "freedom of contract" is, under modern industrial conditions, nothing but a piece of obsolete legal fiction...
...Inadvertently these changes were not noted in our reference to the measures mentioned in the following letter, to the writer of which we are deeply indebted: To the Editor: In that part of your very admirable article entitled, "Overhauling Ohio's Constitution," which describes the Initiative and Referendum, there are three errors that I desire to call your attention to, inasmuch as they have to do with important features of the Ohio amendment...
...Again this new viewpoint of the courts was given expression in an opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States in 1908, in the "Oregon Case," when Justice Brewer wrote: "We take judicial cognizance of all matters of general knowledge...
...And in its place there is going to be People's Control of the Senate...
...In the paragraph that explains how the 42 amendments are to be submitted, you say that all the amendments except the liquor license proposal are to be submitted together and the liquor license amendment is to be submitted on a separate ballot...
...Women in industry is one of the most important facts of our civilization...
...Six million women and girls are at work in the stores and factories and other business institutions, earning the daily bread for themselves and those dependent upon them...
...A Correction A MEMBER of the Ohio constitutional convention who was most active in his support of progressive measures, points out several errors that crept into our recent story of the convention's work...
...and by a vote of 55 to 28...
...Very truly yours, E. W. Doty...
...This additional 3 per cent...
...As Josephine Goldmark says, "They (many woman workers) have in fact no voice or freedom in the matter...
...Long hours of labor, meager pay, unsanitary working conditions—against these injustices women have struggled harder and harder in proportion as their numbers forced into the mills grew larger and larger...
...To refuse means to be dismissed...
...But the bi-partisan majority that kept him there is passing out of control...
...More recently the judicial breaking away from the obsolete "freedom of contract" fiction, as it relates to women in industry, was assisted by the Supreme Court of California and the Supreme Court of Washington...
...and not 6 per cent...
...The alternative is to work or to starve...
...represents about 25,000 names...
...The action of the United States Senate on the Lorimer case, even more than the corruption disclosed in the election that sent him to Washington, has electrified the people of this country to action...
...Direct election of Senators is very near...
...If a law is passed upon this 3 per cent...
...In some cases the early action of this body was modified before final adjournment...
...In both these states the constitutional right of the legislature to restrict the hours of labor of women was upheld...
...Efforts to remove these injustices, to prevent by legislation the wholesale exploitation of mothers and potential mothers, were baffled by the courts...
...Modern industry has reduced 'freedom of contract' to a paper privilege, a mere figure of rhetoric...
...And the new attitude of this court was expressed strikingly in this sentence from its decision: "What we know as men, we can not profess to be ignorant of as judges...
...But each of the 41 amendments is to be voted on separately, and each carries or falls by itself and without reference to any other...
...Your praise to Bigelow was especially merited...
...All of the amendments are to be submitted upon one ballot...
...However, if the legislature fails to pass the law thus petitioned for by 3 per cent...
...They asserted repeatedly that a law limiting hours of labor was "not a legitimate exercise of the police power of the state, but an unreasonable, unnecessary, and arbitrary interference with the right and liberty of the individual to contract in relation to his labor, and as such was in conflict with their freedom under the federal Constitution...
...petition and not a 12 per cent...
...The Big Business Machine is ready for the scrap heap...
...Direct election of Senators has passed in both Houses of Congress...
...I doubt if any other member of the Convention could have carried through the task of leadership...
...In 1910 the same court (but with a wholly new bench of judges) upheld a ten-hour law for women employed in factories...
...initiative it is subject to the referendum...
...The Changing Judicial Mind SIX MILLION WOMEN in this country are engaged in gainful occupations...
...an additional 3 per cent...
...That was one year ago...
...These tribunals of justice, versed in precedent but ignorant of social facts, stood firmly upon the ancient doctrine of "freedom of contract...
...the liquor license amendment will be in a column by itself...
...The Old Guard has fallen into such a state of impotency that it cannot even elect one of its members as president pro tempore of the Senate...
...That difference of 2 per cent...
Vol. 4 • July 1912 • No. 29
