declaring the act unconstitutional was announced, another statute
similar in purpose and effect was enacted as part of a Federal Revenue
Act.[1] This act provided for an additional tax of ten per cent. of the
net profits received from the sale or distribution of the product of any
establishment in which children under the age of fourteen years had been
employed or permitted to work or children between the ages of fourteen
and sixteen had been employed or permitted to work more than eight hours
in any day or more than six days in any week or after the hour of 7 P.M.
or before the hour of 6 A.M. during any portion of the taxable year. In
other words, the law which had been declared void was substantially
reenacted, with the substitution of a prohibitive tax for the clause
prohibiting transportation in interstate commerce.

[Footnote 1: Revenue Act of 1918, Title XII.]

There was no pretense that this act was enacted for the purpose of
raising revenue. The revenue feature was merely legislative camouflage.
To quote the words of Justice Holmes in a recent case,[1] "Congress gave
it the appearance of a taxing measure in order to give it a coating of
constitutionality."

[Footnote 1: _United States v. Jin Fuey Moy_, 241 U.S., 394.]

The debate in the Senate was highly illuminating.[1] Its sponsors
admitted that the measure was not expected or intended to produce
revenue but was designed to regulate child labor and nullify the
decision of the Supreme Court. Senators learned in the law conceded that
if this purpose and effect were declared on the face of the act, or were
necessarily inferable from its provisions, it must inevitably be
declared unconstitutional. Reliance was placed, however, on the facts
that the act was entitled "A bill to raise revenue," and that its
provisions did not necessarily, on their face, belie this label. It was
argued that the Supreme Court would be bound, under its own previous
rulings, to treat the act as if it were what it purported on its face to
be--a revenue measure--and to ignore common knowledge and senatorial
admissions to the contrary. The measure passed the Senate by a
substantial majority and was enacted as part of the revenue bill then
under consideration, from which it has been carried forward into the
present revenue law.

[Footnote 1: See "Congressional Record" of December 18, 1918.]

There the matter stands at this writing. A District Court judge has
declared the new act uncon