navoidable by the State Industrial Commission.[140]

Minimum Wage Laws.--The theory that a law prescribing minimum
wages for women and children violates due process by impairing freedom
of contract was finally discarded in 1937.[141] The current theory of
the Court, particularly when labor is the beneficiary of legislation,
was recently stated by Justice Douglas for a majority of the Court, in
the following terms: "Our recent decisions make plain that we do not sit
as a superlegislature to weigh the wisdom of legislation nor to decide
whether the policy which it expresses offends the public welfare. The
legislative power has limits * * *. But the state legislatures have
constitutional authority to experiment with new techniques; they are
entitled to their own standard of the public welfare; they may within
extremely broad limits control practices in the business-labor field, so
long as specific constitutional prohibitions are not violated and so
long as conflicts with valid and controlling federal laws are
avoided."[142] Proceeding from this basis the Court sustained a Missouri
statute giving employees the right to absent themselves four hours on
election day, between the opening and closing of the polls, without
deduction of wages for their absence. It was admitted that this was a
minimum wage law, but, said Justice Douglas, "the protection of the
right of suffrage under our scheme of things is basic and fundamental,"
and hence within the police power. "Of course," the Justice added, "many
forms of regulation reduce the net return of the enterprise * * * Most
regulations of business necessarily impose financial burdens on the
enterprise for which no compensation is paid. Those are part of the
costs of our civilization. Extreme cases are conjured up where an
employer is required to pay wages for a period that has no relation to
the legitimate end. Those cases can await decision as and when they
arise. The present law has no such infirmity. It is designed to
eliminate any penalty for exercising the right of suffrage and to remove
a practical obstacle to getting out the vote. The public welfare is a
broad and inclusive concept. The moral, social, economic, and physical
well-being of the community is one part of it; the political well-being,
another. The police power which is adequate to fix the financial burden
for one is adequate for the other. The judgment of the legislature that
time out for voting should cost the emplo