comprised the
Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933.[448] As is pointed out elsewhere
the measure was set aside as an attempt to regulate production, a
subject which was held to be "prohibited" to the United States by
Amendment X.[449] _See_ pp. 917-918.

THE BITUMINOUS COAL CONSERVATION ACT

The third measure to be disallowed was the Guffey-Snyder Bituminous Coal
Conservation Act of 1935.[450] The statute created machinery for the
regulation of the price of soft coal, both that sold in interstate
commerce and that sold "locally," and other machinery for the regulation
of hours of labor and wages in the mines. The clauses of the act dealing
with these two different matters were declared by the act itself to be
separable so that the invalidity of the one set would not affect the
validity of the other; but this strategy was ineffectual. A majority of
the Court, speaking by Justice Sutherland held that the act constituted
one connected scheme of regulation which, inasmuch as it invaded the
reserved powers of the States over conditions of employment in
productive industry, was violative of the Constitution and void.[451]
Justice Sutherland's opinion set out from Chief Justice Hughes's
assertion in the Schechter Case of the "fundamental" character of the
distinction between "direct" and "indirect" effects; that is to say,
from the doctrine of the Sugar Trust Case. It then proceeded: "Much
stress is put upon the evils which come from the struggle between
employers and employees over the matter of wages, working conditions,
the right of collective bargaining, etc., and the resulting strikes,
curtailment and irregularity of production and effect on prices; and it
is insisted that interstate commerce is greatly affected thereby. But,
..., the conclusive answer is that the evils are all local evils over
which the Federal Government has no legislative control. The relation of
employer and employee is a local relation. At common law, it is one of
the domestic relations. The wages are paid for the doing of local work.
Working conditions are obviously local conditions. The employees are not
engaged in or about commerce, but exclusively in producing a commodity.
And the controversies and evils, which it is the object of the act to
regulate and minimize, are local controversies and evils affecting local
work undertaken to accomplish that local result. Such effect as they may
have upon commerce, however extensive it may be, is secondar