democrat, expected to find himself against the bill; for, as he
has said, the "respectable people" and the "business men" whom he
knew did not believe in such intrusions upon the right even of
workingmen to do what they would with their own. The laissez
faire doctrine of economic life was good form in those days.

But the only member of that committee that approached the
question with an open mind found that his first impressions were
wrong. He went down into the tenement houses to see for himself.
He found cigars being made under conditions that were appalling.
For example, he discovered an apartment of one room in which
three men, two women, and several children--the members of two
families and a male boarder--ate, slept, lived, and made cigars.
"The tobacco was stowed about everywhere, alongside the foul
bedding, and in a corner where there were scraps of food." These
conditions were not exceptional; they were only a little worse
than was usual.

Roosevelt did not oppose the bill; he fought for it and it
passed. Then he appeared before Governor Cleveland to argue for
it on behalf of the Cigar-Makers' Union. The Governor hesitated,
but finally signed it. The Court of Appeals declared it
unconstitutional, in a smug and well-fed decision, which spoke
unctuously of the "hallowed" influences of the "home." It was a
wicked decision, because it was purely academic, and was removed
as far as the fixed stars from the actual facts of life. But it
had one good result. It began the making of Theodore Roosevelt
into a champion of social justice, for, as he himself said, it
was this case which first waked him "to a dim and partial
understanding of the fact that the courts were not necessarily