"
To these considerations the Court suggests no reply, and upon them it
offers no criticism. On the contrary, it in terms concedes "the strength
of this appeal to recognized and widely prevalent sentiment." It
declares that "no word of praise could overstate the industry and
Intelligence of the Commission" which prepared the New York law, and it
apparently agrees with the conclusion of the Commission, based on "a
most voluminous array of statistical tables, extracts from the works of
philosophical writers, and the industrial laws of many countries"--the
conclusion that "our own system of dealing with industrial accidents is
economically, morally, and legally unsound." But all these
considerations of public policy, social justice, and world-wide
conviction are set aside "as subordinate to the primary question whether
they can be molded into statutes without infringing upon the letter or
spirit of our own written Constitution." The countries which have
adopted this desirable reform, it is said, "are so-called constitutional
monarchies in which, as in England, there is no written constitution,
and the Parliament or lawmaking body is supreme. In our country the
Federal and State Constitutions are the charters which demark the extent
and the limitation of legislative power.
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