been questioned
by some writers. It has nowhere been more clearly explained than in an
address delivered before a body of lawyers by a former member of the
Court.[1] Mr. Hughes said:

There has been in late years a series of cases sustaining the
regulation of interstate commerce, although the rules
established by Congress had the quality of police regulation.
This has been decided with respect to the interstate
transportation of lottery tickets, of impure food and drugs,
of misbranded articles, of intoxicating liquors, and of women
for the purpose of debauchery. It was held to be within the
power of Congress to keep "the channels of interstate commerce
free from immoral and injurious uses." But the Court in this
most recent decision has pointed out that in each of these
cases "the use of interstate commerce was necessary to the
accomplishment of harmful results." The Court, finding this
element to be wanting in the Child Labor Case, denied the
validity of the act of Congress. The Court found that the
goods shipped were of themselves harmless. They were permitted
to be freely shipped after thirty days from the time of
removal from the factory. The labor of production, it was
said, had been performed before transportation began and thus
before the goods became the subject of interstate commerce.

The fundamental proposition thus established is that the power
over interstate commerce is not an absolute power of
prohibition, but only one of regulation, and that the prior
decisions in which prohibitory rules had been sustained rested
upon the character of the particular subjects there involved.
It was held that the authority over interstate commerce was to
regulate such commerce and not to give Congress the power to
control the states in the exercise of their police power over
local trade and manufacture.

[Footnote 1: Charles E. Hughes, President's Address, Printed in Year
Book of New York State Bar Association, Vol. XLII, p. 227 et seq.]

Congress did not receive this decision of the Supreme Court
submissively. On the contrary, plans were laid to nullify it. The effort
to legislate on child labor under cover of the power to regulate
commerce having failed, recourse was had to the constitutional grant of
power to lay taxes. Within six months after the decision of the Supreme
Court