Washington was seething with sightseers left over from the Easter holidays. At the same time that 53,000 egg-rolling youngsters were trampling down the fine green turf of the White House lawn, 4,000 of their elders were exploring the marble corridors of the new Supreme Courthouse. Little did many of them know beforehand of the momentous things that might happen during their visit. Little did they know when something did happen, for the courtroom was too small to admit more than a fraction of their number. But the connoisseurs knew and were present. Stanley Reed, Robert H. Jackson and James W. Morris, top-flight attorneys of the Department of Justice, all had pre-empted front seats. Present also were Senator Robert Wagner of New York, Chinese Ambassador Sao-ke Alfred Sze and many another who expected interesting developments. Prime event they hoped for was a decision on Mr. Wagner's Labor Relations Act. In that they were disappointed, but their time was well spent, for they witnessed a red-letter decision day.
Elsie Parrish. Off & on from 1933 to 1935, the Cascadian Hotel of Wenatchee, Wash, employed Mrs. Elsie Parrish as chambermaid for $12 a week. Under Washington's Minimum Wage Law for women she should have got $14.50 for her 48-hour week. She demanded what the law said was coming to her. The hotel offered $17 in settlement. Elsie Parrish spurned it. She sued for $216.19.
Any lawyer could have told her that she did not have a Chinawoman's chance of getting it. Washington's Minimum Wage Law was no New Deal upstart. It was passed in 1913. About the same time Oregon passed a similar law. Oregon's law ' was tested in the Courts. The Supreme Court approved it in 1917 by a 4-4 vote, Justice Louis Brandeis (who had helped prepare briefs in the case before his appointment to the Court) not voting. Six years later another minimum wage law passed by Congress for the District of Columbia came before the Supreme Court. Again Justice Brandeis did not vote, presumably because his daughter had been agitating for such laws. By this time, however, the complexion of the Court had changed. Instead of tying 4-4, thereby giving the Law the benefit of Constitutional doubt, the Court voted 5-3 against it. In 1925 a minimum wage law of Arizona, in 1927 a similar law of Arkansas, last year a similar law of New York—all were invalidated on the District of Columbia precedent. What chance did Elsie Parrish have? Washington's Minimum Wage Law had been regarded for years as a dead letter.
But the wiseacres reckoned without one of nine old men. His name was Owen J. Roberts. Justice Roberts is the key man of the Court to those who argue liberal v. conservative cases. For he has voted on both sides. He voted that New York's Minimum Vage Law was unconstitutional. It was incredible that he should reverse himself on so similar a case. Yet he did.*
What Justice Roberts' reasons may have been, could perhaps be inferred from the words of Chief Justice Hughes who, sounding amazingly like a New Dealer, wrote the majority opinion in the 5-4 decision upholding Chambermaid Parrish. Said the Chief Justice: