ose circulation is outside the State of
publication are not by that fact excluded from the operation of the act.
(Mabee _v._ White Plains Publishing Co., 327 U.S. 178 (1946)). On the
other hand, an employee whose work it is to prepare meals and serve them
to maintenance-of-way employees of an interstate railroad in pursuance
of a contract between his employer and the railroad company is not
"engaged in commerce" within the meaning of Sec. 6 and 7 of the Fair
Labor Standards Act (McLeod _v._ Threlkeld, 319 U.S. 491 (1943)); nor are
maintenance employees of a typical metropolitan office building operated
as an independent enterprise, which is used and is to be used for
offices by every variety of tenants, including some producers of goods
for commerce (10 East 40th St. _v._ Callus, 325 U.S. 578 (1945)); nor
are maintenance employees of a building corporation which furnishes loft
space to tenants engaged in production for interstate commerce "unless
an adequate proportion of such tenants are so engaged." (Schulte _v._
Gangi, 328 U.S. 108 (1946)). _Also_ Section 12 (a) of the Fair Labor
Standards Act, which provides that "no producer, * * * shall ship or
deliver for shipment in commerce any goods produced in an establishment
* * * in or about which * * * any oppressive child labor has been
employed * * *" was held inapplicable to a company engaged in the
transmission in interstate commerce of telegraph messages, (Western
Union _v._ Lenroot, 323 U.S. 490 (1945)). The decision was a
five-to-four one. It should be added that the Court has not always been
unanimous in favoring coverage by the act. In the Borden case above,
Chief Justice Stone, speaking for himself and Justice Roberts,
protested, as follows: "No doubt there are philosophers who would argue,
what is implicit in the decision now rendered, that in a complex modern
society there is such interdependence of its members that the activities
of most of them are necessary to the activities of most others. But I
think that Congress did not make that philosophy the basis of the
coverage of the Fair Labor Standards Act. It did not, by a
'house-that-Jack-built' chain of causation, bring within the sweep of
the statute the ultimate _causa causarum_ which result in the production
of goods for commerce. Instead it defined production as a physical
process. It said in Sec. 3 (j) 'Produced means produced, manufactured,
mined, handled, or in any other manner worked on' and declared th