The present Federal Revenue Act is noteworthy in more aspects than its
complexity and the disproportionate burden cast on possessors of great
wealth. To students of our form of government it is particularly
interesting because of provisions[1] purporting to impose a tax on
employers of child labor, for these represent an attempt by Congress to
nullify a decision of the Supreme Court and grasp a power belonging to
the states. The story of these provisions throws a flood of light on a
method by which our Constitution is being changed.

[Footnote 1: Revenue Act of 1921, Title XII.]

The evils of child labor have long engaged the attention of
philanthropists and lawmakers. In comparatively recent years child labor
laws are said to have been enacted in every state of the Union. These
statutes, however, lacked uniformity. Some of them were not stringent
enough to satisfy modern sentiment. Moreover, commercial considerations
entered into the reckoning. Industries in states where the laws were
stringent were found to be at a disadvantage in comparison with like
industries in states where the laws were lax, and this came to be
regarded as a species of unfair competition. The advantages of
uniformity and standardization seemed obvious from both the
philanthropic and the commercial viewpoints, and Congress determined to
take a hand in the matter.

No well-informed person supposed for a moment that the regulation of
child labor was one of the functions of the General Government as those
functions were planned by the makers of the Constitution. The United
States Supreme Court had declared over and over again that such matters
were the province of the states; that "speaking generally, the police
power is reserved to the states and there is no grant thereof to