The importance of this decision cannot be overestimated. On it hangs the
validity of nearly all the laws which have been passed in the United
States for the protection of women workers. If the Oregon law had been
declared unconstitutional, laws in twenty States, or practically all
the States where women work in factories, would have been in perpetual
danger, and the United States might easily have sunk to a position
occupied now by no leading country in Europe.

Great Britain has had protective legislation for women workers since
1844. In 1847 the labor of women in English textile mills was limited to
ten hours a day, the period we are now worrying about, as being possibly
contrary to our Constitution. France, within the past five years, has
established a ten-hour day, broken by one hour of rest. Switzerland,
Germany, Holland, Austria, Italy, limit the hours of women's labor. In
several countries there are special provisions giving extra time off to
women who have household responsibilities. What would our
Constitution-bound law makers say to such a proposition, if any one had
the hardihood to suggest it?

If this law had not been upheld by the United States Supreme Court the
women of no State could have hoped to secure further legislation for
women workers. As it is, women in many States are preparing to establish
what is now known as "The Oregon Standard," that is, a ten-hour day for
all working women.

Nothing in connection with the woman movement is more significant,
certainly nothing was more unexpected, than the voluntary abandonment,
on the part of women, of class prejudice and class distinctions. Where
formerly the interest of the leisured woman in her wage-earning sisters
was of a sentimental or philanthropic character, it has become practical