Bibliography-I

Congress did pass a bill that year providing for old age pensions for retired railroad employees and placed the expense of the sys tem upon the carriers. This Act was held unconstitutional a year later. In the meantime the growing burden of unemployment re lief had largely been transferred from local units of government to the Federal Treasury. To the rising tide of literature advocat ing social insurance was added the demand of a powerful section of industrial opinion, which had hitherto regarded such legislation as paternalistic, for a more orderly and self-sustaining system of administering relief.

In 1934 the President appointed the Committee on Economic Security, a Cabinet commission headed by the Secretary of La bor. Calling to its assistance many of the technical experts on social insurance in the country, the committee formulated a com prehensive program of social insurance covering the subjects of unemployment, public health, old age, child welfare, and aid to dependent mothers, the blind and the crippled. An omnibus bill embodying the committee's recommendations was drafted and introduced early in the first session of the 74th Congress, and was enacted into law seven months later as the Social Security Act of 1935.

The titles of the bill relating to assistance for the aged, de pendent mothers, children, the blind and the crippled, were de signed to encourage the states to appropriate money for these purposes as they offered to match state expenditures with Federal grants in varying percentages. More controversial were those por tions of the bill relating to unemployment insurance and old age annuities. The feature of both of these plans was an excise tax on payrolls. Unlike the ill-fated Railroad Retirement Bill which had rested on the commerce power, these portions of the bill depend for their constitutional validity upon the authority granted Con gress to tax and appropriate money for the general welfare. The old age annuity tax fell upon both employers and employees and was to be completely administered by the Federal Government, benefit payments being scheduled to begin in 1942.

The unemployment insurance tax, however, was based upon the device of the Wagner-Lewis Bill. It imposed a payroll tax upon employers of eight or more people but allowed the tax payer to credit against the tax as much as 90% of the contributions paid into state unemployment funds, provided that the Social Security Board certified that the state law met certain specified standards.

Outside the scope of the unemployment tax were charitable corporations, governmental agencies, and employers of agricul tural labour, domestics, and seamen. The response of the states to this Federal legislation was almost instantaneous. During the pendency of the bill the number of states with unemployment in surance laws was increased to eight and the total number of states with old age assistance statutes mounted to 37. Others

soon fell into line.

Immigration and Aliens.

Since 1921 unrestricted immi gration has ceased. An Act of Congress in that year limited by annual quotas the number of immigrants. This was superseded by the Immigration Act of 1924, which except with respect to the states in the Western Hemisphere, allotted to the nations a quota based upon the number of persons in each nationality in the United States at certain dates. In the case of several far eastern countries immigration is prohibited by law. State legisla tion relating to private employment does not discriminate against aliens but in a few instances laws require that preference be given to citizens or local residents in public employment or em ployment on public works.

Collective Bargaining.

Since the case of Commonwealth v. Hunt in 1842, organizations of workingmen formed for the purpose of benefiting themselves by endeavouring to secure higher wages, shorter hours of labour, or better working con ditions have been lawful throughout the United States. The ap plication of the Federal anti-trust Act to labour, particularly in the Danbury Hatters' case created some fear that the Act might be construed as rendering unlawful labour unions and all their activities. But in 1914, Congress passed the Clayton Act which declared that "nothing contained in the anti-trust laws shall be construed to forbid the existence of labor . . . organizations." Although American law recognized that labourers had a right to organize, until recently employers were conceded the privilege of discouraging union organization by discharging or refusing to em ploy workers with union affiliations. This prerogative was recog nized as a constitutional right in the case of Adair v. U.S. in which the Supreme Court held Congress without power to abridge the freedom of the carriers to discriminate against organized rail road workers. With the trend towards unionization in the mass production industries many employers even went so far as to re quire prospective employees to sign as a condition of employment an agreement not to become connected with any labour organiza tion. Such agreements, often referred to by labour organizers as "yellow dog contracts" were bitterly denounced by organized la bour. In many instances the courts, however, enjoined unions from interfering with the performance of such pacts and one state Supreme Court declared in an advisory opinion that a proposed statute invalidating such contracts would be unconstitutional. Such decisions long thwarted efforts to protect workingmen's or ganizations by legislation from employer interference.