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144 F.2d 608

Docket Nos. 361-363.

Guiseppi v. Walling

Second Circuit Court of Appeals

Decided June 27, 1944.

Second Circuit Court of Appeals · decided 1944-06-27

6 counsel of record

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“There is no surer way to misread any document than to read it literally.”

quoted by 44 later decisions, including Winston v. United States, New York State Higher Education Services Corp. v. Adamo

Applies 11 U.S.C. § 501 · 29 U.S.C. § 210

Relies on National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. · Yakus v. United States · Phelps Dodge Corporation v. National Labor Relations Board

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1944-06-27

How this case has been cited

Cited by 224 later decisions (5 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2017 · most notably Gemsco, Inc. v. Walling (1945), United States v. Oates (1977)

101 federal appellate · 8 district · 60 state decisions — followed in 10 states

57019441950196019701980199020002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1*612Douglas B. Maggs, Archibald Cox, and Louis Sherman, all of Washington, D. C., Irving Rozen, of New York City, and Kenneth Meiklejohn and Faye Blackburn, both of Washington, D. C., for respondent.

¶2Landau & Friedman, of New York City (Solomon S. Friedman, of New York City, of counsel), for petitioners, Josephine Guiseppi et al.

¶3Brower, Brill & Tompkins, of New York City (Ilo Orleans and Coleman Gangel, both of New York City, of counsel), for petitioners Mildred Maretzo et al.

¶4Weisman, Quinn, Allan & Spett, of New York City (Samuel S. Allan and Seymour D. Altmark, both of New York City, of counsel), for petitioners Gemsco, Inc., et al.

¶5Kraushaar & Kraushaar, of New York City (Meyer Kraushaar, of New York City, of counsel), for Lidz Brothers, Inc., amicus curiae.

¶6Erwin Feldman, of New York City, for Harlem-Adler Co., Inc., and Schner-Block Company, amicus curiae.

¶7Before L. HAND, SWAN, and FRANK, Circuit Judges.

¶8FRANK, Circuit Judge.

¶91. Our starting point is this: Without the prohibition of home-work contained in the order of the Administrator the Act, in its application to this industry, will be unenforcible and will become virtually a dead letter. For so it was found as a fact by the Administrator, to whom the Act assigns its enforcement.2 And the truth of his findings petitioners cannot here dispute, since they do not assert that those findings are not supported by substantial evidence heard at the Administrator’s hearing. At most, some of the petitioners cite a part of the evidence which is at variance with the findings but make no effort to show that there was not other contrary evidence of a substantial character. Moreover, as the, printed supplements to their briefs, filed under our Rule 22, do not contain all the evidence, we must assume that, if we were, to read all of it, the findings would be amply justified.3 We must, too, take those findings “at their face value,” although the Act did not require the Administrator to make them.4 Indeed, assuming for the moment that, if necessary to make the statute effective, the Act conferred on him the power to issue such a regulation, there is a “presumption of the existence of facts justifying its exercise.”5

¶102. Notwithstanding that, on this record, petitioners are obliged to confess that the wage order will fail without the home work prohibition, they assert that the Administrator had no power to issue it. Faced with the provisions of § 8(f) — which authorize him to insert in wage orders issued pursuant to § 8 “such terms and conditions as” he “finds necessary to carry out the purposes of such orders, to prevent the circumvention , and to safeguard minimum wage rates established therein”— petitioners say that, although on the facts here the elimination of home work is perhaps within that language, the regulation is so sweeping in its consequences that, had Congress intended to authorize it, the statute would have dealt with that subject specifically as it did with child labor in § 12. But in § 12 Congress dealt with child labor as an independent matter, completely eliminating the employment of minors in the affected industries because of the socially and economically undesirable character of such employment and without regard to the effect on the wage rates and hours of adults. Here the Administrator has prohibited home work not at all on the ground of its inherent 'undesirability but solely as a means of preventing the circumvention or evasion of an order prescribing adult wage rates. Moreover, doubtless having in mind the provision of § 8(b) that a wage order must “not substantially curtail employment in the industry,” the *613Administrator has made a finding (which we must accept as true) that the home work regulation will have no such effect; the findings show that its consequences to the employers and employees is not as drastic as petitioners assert in their briefs. This is not a case, then, where an effort is being made to utilize § 8(f) as a subterfuge to achieve an independent end outside the scope of the Act; the regulation here is a means of accomplishing the purpose of an authorized wage order by stopping evasions of that order, and the Administrator in § 8(f) was expressly empowered to use means of that kind.6 Nor, in view of the Administrator’s findings, can it be said that this is a case where the means are so disproportionate to the authorized end that they cease to be means except in form and in truth become an independent end not contemplated in the Act.

¶11Addison v. Holly Hill Fruit Products Co., Inc., 64 S.Ct. 1215, 1221, is not contrary to our conclusion. There the Court, interpreting one of the several specific exemptions from the Act, noted that those exemptions were “catalogued with particularity,” and said: “Exemptions made in such detail preclude their enlargement by implication.”

¶123. Petitioners, however, maintain that the amendment to the Act, in 1940, which added § 6(a)(5), with its specific reference to homework in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, shows that Congress denied power elsewhere with respect to that subject. That argument cannot stand up; for the legislative history of § 6(a)(5) discloses that it was added to meet the peculiar economic conditions existing in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands; it might better be argued, indeed, that Congress found it necessary to amend the Act by adding that subsection precisely in order to limit the exercise of that power theretofore existing, before that amendment, with respect to those and all other areas covered by the Act.

¶134. Petitioners further contend that the legislative history of § 8(f) demonstrates that Congress did not intend thereby to delegate any authority concerning hornework. That history, briefly told, is as follows : The Senate bill, as reported by the Committee in charge, provided that all minimum wage rates and wage differentials should be established by a Board through the issuance of labor standard orders. With-respect to such orders the Board was given powers in a provision substantially the same as § 8(f) of the Act except that after the word “conditions” there was a parenthetical clause “(including the restriction or prohibition of such acts or practices).” On the floor, an amendment was adopted, without comment or objection, inserting in the parentheses the words “industrial homework.” The original House bill, which was much the same as the Senate bill, included this same provision containing the matter in parentheses. This bill, however, was recommitted. The House Committee then reported a new bill which contained no provision for wage orders but established fixed minimum wages, and included no provision resembling § 8 (f), i. e., for the prevention of circumvention or evasion. This substitute bill (with modifications not relevant here) passed the House. In the Conference Committee a compromise was made between the Senate and House bills which resulted in the present Act, with § 6 containing fixed wage rates subject to acceleration as provided in § 8. Neither the Conference Report nor the subsequent debates discussed any reasons for omitting the matter in the parentheses from the provision which now appears as § 8(f). We see nothing in that ambiguous history disclosing an intention to eliminate from § 8(f) the power to prohibit home work if that prohibition is necessary to prevent circumvention or evasions.

¶14Cudahy Packing Company v. Holland, 315 U.S. 357, 62 S.Ct. 651, 86 L.Ed. 895, is not in point. True, there, the Court referred to the fact that authority to delegate the subpoena power, expressly granted in the Senate bill, had been rejected by the Conference Committee; but, as the Court pointed out, the significance of that fact was - that the Conference Committee substituted a provision giving the Administrator the subpoena power conferred upon the *614Federal Trade Commission, and that agency, and other agencies upon which like power had been conferred, had never theretofore construed it to include the right to delegate the issuance of subpoenas; the Court also said that, if the right to delegate the subpoena power were implied, then necessarily there would be a similar implication as to all the functions assigned by the statute to the Administrator, a conclusion which the important nature of several of those functions precluded.

¶155. But petitioners assert that, even granting that § 8(f), taken alone, would include the power to issue the home work order, other provisions of the Act show that Congress could not have intended to authorize so extensive a regulation. The argument runs thus: § 8(f), by its terms, restricts the Administrator’s authority to that of annexing “terms and conditions’ to “orders” issued under § 8; no similar power is given him as to wage rates automatically established under § 6 when no § 8 order is operative; by § 8(e), all orders (except in unusual circumstances) expire in October, 1945. If, then, say petitioners, § 8(f) were construed to authorize the homework prohibition here, that prohibition would expire in 1945. It is unreasonable to believe, argue petitioners, that Congress intended that so extensive a prohibition should be in effect for a period of at most seven years (in this case a little more than a year), that home work could be banned during but a small span and not for the long future. Accordingly, petitioners urge, as § 8(f) applies only to orders, it must, for the sake of consistency, be construed not to include so extensive a power.

¶16That argument proves too much. It cannot stop with eliminating from § 8(f) the authority to forbid home work. Pushed to its logical conclusion, this contention says that any regulation under that subsection lacks validity unless the statute expressly authorizes a similar regulation concerning all wage rates; petitioners would thus have us read § 8(f) out of the Act. As, of course, petitioners do not venture to go that far, their “consistency” contention comes to this: § 8(f) must be narrowly interpreted so as not to confer authority of any importance; in other words, the Administrator may make a regulation to prevent minor evasions of a wage order, but he is powerless to prevent major evasions which, as here, will gut the order. Such an interpretation — which flies in the face of the wording of § 8(f), rendering it virtually meaningless, making practically useless many a wage order, thus all but destroying § 8 — ascribes to Congress an unreasonable intention.

¶17Were it necessary for us here to pass on the matter, we would be obliged to consider whether consistency and reasonableness require that § 8(f) be interpreted so as to apply to all wage rates or whether, quite aside from § 8(f), the Administrator has the implied power to issue regulations necessary to protect all wage rates from evasions.7 But the power of the Administrator to safeguard wage rates when no wage order is in effect is an issue not now before us. Since in the instant case there is such a wage order, it is not our present concern whether or not the act is deficient in its protection of wage rates not established by an order. If there is such a flaw, it is the function of Congress to deal with it. The legislative process is inherently such that, on occasions, the applications of a statute in practice disclose inconsistencies. While the literal meaning of a statute must yield to its evident purpose or policy, yet where a statutory provision accords with that purpose, the courts should seldom enlarge that provision, in the interest of symmetry or uniformity, in order to supply an omission.8 In interpreting an*615other section of this very Act, the Supreme Court said the other day: “Legislation introducing a new system is at best empirical, and not infrequently administration reveals gaps or inadequacies of one sort or another that may call for amendatory legislation. But it is no warrant for extending a statute that experience may disclose that it should have been made more comprehensive.”9 If, then, it were true that, in working out the compromise between the House and Senate bills, Congress, by literally restricting the provisions of § 8(f) to orders, inconsistently left other wage rates subject to evasion, that would be no reason for holding that, as to orders, Congress did not mean what it said.

¶186. We cannot agree with the suggestion that Congress, if it had intended the Administrator to regulate home work, would have required him first to consult the industry committees or to hold hearings. For §§ 7(c) and 13 empower him to take action having more extensive consequences without such consultation or hearings.

¶19We also consider untenable the suggestion that the home work regulation is invalid because the statute did not expressly require a hearing as a condition precedent to its issuance. Aside from the fact that here such a hearing was in fact held, the short answer is that the Constitution does not require a hearing before the promulgation of such a regulation. Bowles v. Willingham, 321 U.S. 503, 64 S.Ct. 641; Phillips v. Commissioner, 283 U.S. 589, 596, 597, 51 S.Ct. 608, 75 L.Ed. 1289; Bi-Metallic Investment Co. v. State Board, 239 U.S. 441, 36 S.Ct. 141, 60 L.Ed. 372.10

¶207. We reject the argument that stricter enforcement or some other measure would meet the problem without the need for prohibiting home work, for the Administrator has made express findings to the contrary.11

¶218. Nor is there, we think, anything to the point that the Administrator has made an unreasonable discriminatory classification by his exemptions from the prohibition. The Fifth Amendment contains no “equal protection” clause.12 Moreover, it is by no means clear that the exemption would be an invalid classification even under the Fourteenth Amendment.13

¶229. Equally unsound is the argument that the prohibition of home work violates due process. It is perhaps sufficient to nc“-e that, to support this argument, petitioners rely heavily on the remarks of Field, J., concerning liberty of contract in his concurring opinion in Butchers Union Co. v. Crescent City Co., 111 U.S. 746, 757, 4 S.Ct. 652, 28 L.Ed. 585. Surely the extreme views there expressed are no longer authoritative.14

¶2310. Finally we come to the contention that, if the statute confers the asserted authority on the Administrator, then it unconstitutionally delegates legislative power. The question raised by that contention is not new. More than two thousand years ago, a profound student of government, from whom we derive the concept of a “government of laws, and not of men.”15 explained the inescapability of some delegation by legislators. The “rule of law,” he said, “is preferable to that of any indi*616vidual” and “he who bids the law rule maybe deemed to hid God and Reason alone rule, but he who bids man rule adds an element of the beast; for desire is a wild beast, and passion perverts the minds of rulers, even when they are the best of men,” whereas “the law is reason unaffected by desire.” But, sagely, he noted that “there may indeed be cases in which the law seems unable to determine,” and asked “but in such cases can a man?” He answered that “the law trains officers for this express purpose, and appoints them to determine matters which are left undecided by it, to the best of their judgment. Further it permits them to make any amendment of the existing laws which experience suggests And at this day there are magistrates, for example judges, who have authority to decide matters which the law is unable to determine ” He added that “no one doubts that the law would command and decide in the best manner whenever it could. But some things can, and others cannot, be comprehended under the law, and this is the origin of the vexed question whether the best law or.the best man should rule. For matters of detail about which men deliberate cannot be included in legislation. Nor does anyone deny that the decisions of such matters must be left to man 15a

¶24Without mentioning that author, our Supreme Court has often echoed his words. In 1904, it said,16 “Congress legislated on the subject as far as was reasonably practicable, and from the necessities of the case was compelled to leave to executive officials the duty of bringing about the result pointed out by the statute. To deny the power of Congress to delegate such a .duty would, in effect, amount but to declaring that the plenary power vested in Congress to regulate foreign commerce could not be efficaciously exerted.” In 1934, it said, “Undoubtedly legislation must often be adapted to complex conditions involving a host of details with which the national Legislature cannot deal directly. *617The Constitution has never been regarded as denying to the Congress necessary resources of flexibility and practicability . Without capacity to give authorizations of that sort we should have the anomaly of a legislative power which in many circumstances calling for its exertion would be but a futility.”17

¶25True, in the case last quoted and in another decided about the same time,18 it was held that the delegations there involved were so lacking in adequate standards, so unrestrained, as to be unconstitutional. But, in the light of many subsequent decisions, those two cases must now be considered exceptional, restricted to their particular or very similar facts. The standard in § 8(f), coupled with the provisions of the other provisions of § 8 and with § 2, amply meet the test of adequacy of standards according to recent Supreme Court decisions.19

¶26Petitioners scarcely try to distinguish those cases. They fall back on a rigid conception of the “separation of powers” doctrine. Such an inflexible conception finds no justification in English or American history,20 and cannot be realized in practice.21 As Holmes, J., said in his dissenting opinion in Springer v. Philippine Islands, *618277 U.S. 189, 211, 48 S.Ct. 480, 485, 72 L.Ed. 404: “It does not seem to need argument to show that however we may disguise it by veiling words we do not and cannot carry out the distinction between legislative and executive action with mathematical precision and divide the branches into watertight compartments, were it ever so desirable to do so, which I am far from believing that it is, or that the Constitution requires.”22

¶27As, in spite of Supreme Court decisions which should put the matter at rest, we still frequently hear arguments which assume an inherent infirmity in delegation of rule-making to administrative officers, it seems worthwhile to analyze the problem somewhat more in detail.

¶28In the history of this country, subordinate legislative powers were delegated at an early day, both by our state legislatures and Congress.23 What is new for us is the name “administrative law.”24 The writings of Goodnow and Freund introduced that name to the American legal profession several decades ago. But only in recent years has it come into extensive use. Even now, it finds no place in many of our conventional “digests.” A new name, a novel label expressive of a new generalization, can have immense consequences. Emerson said, “Generalization is always a new influx of the divinity into the mind. Hence the thrill that attends it.”25 Confronted with disturbing variety, we often feel a tension from which a generalization, an abstraction, relieves us. It serves as a de-problemizer, aiding us to pass from an unstable, problematical, situation to a more stable one. It satisfies a craving, meets what Emerson called “the insatiable demand of harmony in man,” a demand which translates itself into the so-called “law” of “the least effort.”26 But the solution of a problem through the invention of a new generalization is no final solution: The new generalization breeds new problems. Stressing a newly perceived likeness be*619tween many particular happenings which had theretofore seemed unlike, it may blind us to continuing unlikenesses. Hypnotized by a label which emphasizes identities, we may be led to ignore differences. In all fields of thought this evil is encountered. Nowhere can it do more harm than in democratic government — and in democratic courthouse government in particular. For, with its stress on uniformity, an abstraction or generalization tends to become totalitarian in its attitude towards uniquenesses.27 While, then, the concept of “administrative law” is invaluable, because it pulls together, for comparative study and common use, techniques and ideas developed in scattered areas of administrative action,28 there is danger that that concept may yield inelastic uniformities. All administrators should not be treated identically.29 Yet the problem of the delegated powers of a particular administrative of*620ficer is illuminated by the recognition that it is part of a general problem common to what Patterson refers to as the “pluralistic universe of administrative law.” The illumination, however, has brought fear to some. The very word “delegation,” when now coupled with the words “administrative officers,” strikes terror in their hearts. They resemble the child who was horrified when his attention was called to the facts that his tongue was wet and his shoes full of feet. For delegation is a name for something that has always been present in society and always will be.30 Perhaps the fright the label engenders can be reduced by observing that “discretion,” which is familiar, is kin to “delegation.” Almost boundless discretion has traditionally been conferred upon state and federal prosecuting officers to begin or not to begin proceedings of enforcement of some of the huge number of penal statutes (and against some rather than against other violators) and to “settle” such cases by “bargain day” methods.31 Wide, too, is the beneficent discretion of courts sitting in equity to relax stiff legal rules.32 And the power of court’s in general to interpret statutes has been said by some persons to be, in practical' effect, a sort of supplementary legislation which the legislature necessarily leaves to the courts.

¶29Indeed, those who today criticize the transfer of “subsidiary legislation” to administrative officers forget that, inspired by somewhat similar motives, there has been and still is much criticism of the power exercised by judges in construing statutes, that Bentham, Livingston, and their disciples (some even in our time33) have insisted that all “law” must emanate solely from the legislature, and have tried, through codification, to destroy all “judicial legislation.” 34 Repeated attempts on the European continent to exploit that notion have invariably proved disappointing.35 Legal certainty to be attained by eliminating, via codification,, all judicial law making is a fatuous dream.36 Courts in their interpretation of statutes often *621cannot avoid some such legislation. The enactment of many a statute thus, by implication, calls on the courts to engage in supplemental law making. That activity should always, of course, be modest in scope.37 But the necessary generality in the wording of many statutes, and ineptness in the drafting of others, frequently compels the courts, as best they can, to fill in the gaps, an activity which, no matter how one may label it, is in part legislative.38 Sagacious legal scholars of high repute, such as, for instance, John Chip-man Gray, Wigmore, Allen and Radin, have said that courts, in discharging their duty of carrying out the express will of the legislature as faithfully as they can, are frequently unable to escape the responsibility of engaging in supplemental legislation.39 As Chief Justice Hughes said in 1928, “a federal statute finally means what the [Supreme] Court says it means.”40 Thus the courts in their way, as administrators in their way, perform the task of supplementing statutes. In the case of the courts, we call it “interpretation,” or “filling in the gaps”; in the case of administrators we call it “delegation” of au*622thority to “supply the details.” In both instances, the task is unavoidable.

¶30There are those who, while they grudgingly concede the necessity of delegation of subordinate legislative powers to administrative officers, are disturbed because currently it is accompanied by what they consider an unwise breadth of authority in fact-finding given to such officers when deciding particular cases arising under administrative regulations.40a Such persons urge the courts to set narrow limits to the extent to which legislative powers may validly -be assigned to administrators. But authority to find the facts is inseparable from the decision of specific cases.40b Judges trying nonjury cases have at least an equal breadth of authority in fact-finding. And extensive indeed it is, since, in the process of decision-making, the “minor” (fact) premise often plays a part as important as (if not more important than) the “major” (rule) premise.41 (Recognizing that, where the testimony is in conflict, the determination of the facts by a trial judge involves a guess as to the accuracy and honesty of the witnesses, some commentators have, indeed, referred to the “discretion of the judge” in the “estimation of the testimony.”42) Appellate courts sometimes make greater demands of administrators as to precision and detail in fact-finding than they ordinarily do of trial judges sitting without a jury43 — although it is an open secret that some federal trial judges who resent their own obligation in nonjury cases to make findings of fact express antipathy to the fact-finding powers vested in administrative officials. And upper courts always require far more of administrators than they do of juries : few administrators are permitted to return general (factless) verdicts.44 The suggestion that appellate courts should, when reviewing administrative action, inquire more searchingly into the findings of administrators than they now do under the “substantial evidence” rule is difficult to reconcile with the practice of those courts in reviewing decisions of trial courts; moreover it would burden appellate courts impossibly unless the number of appellate judges were increased at least tenfold.45 The truth is that much of the regulation of the affairs of citizens which the complexities of our civilization necessitates calls for a very considerable use of the administrative device,46 and that its use must be accompanied by grants of delegated powers47 both as to the making of rules and the finding of facts. Complexity is our lot and we should not rail against its inevitable concomitants.48 Improvement in the procedures of administrative agencies and in their relations to the courts, when they judicially review administrative conduct, is desirable and pos*623sible.49 The phrases “separation of powers” and “a government of laws, and not of men,” if properly construed, embody principles of the first importance in a democracy; but if so construed as-seriously to cripple effective government, they will lead to democracy’s downfall, for, as the Federalist tells us, an ineffective government paves the way to anarchy and thence to depotism.50 Laws neither execute nor interpret themselves. Men must discharge those functions. Above all what we need is the selection of well-trained, honest, able men, conscientiously obeying the laws, and imbued with the spirit of democracy, to serve as administrators and on the bench.51

¶31Their selection, however, is not a judicial function. And it is surely not our function in this case to thwart the legislative purpose (whether we like it or not) by so interpreting this statute as to leave it, as to the industry here concerned, a mere bit of worthless printing.

¶32Petitions denied.

¶107L. HAND, Circuit Judge

¶108(concurring).

¶109The only question which, as I view it, requires discussion is the meaning of § 8 (f); for the plaintiffs’ objections, based upon the Fifth Amendment, and — as applied to this situation — upon a supposed unlawful delegation of power, have long since been answered in the books. I should have not had any trouble as to § 8(f), had it applied to all wages — those fixed by statute as well as those fixed by “advisory committees” — indeed, I am not sure that the Administrator would have needed any express grant of power to promulgate the regulation which he did, had the Act been silent. His duty might have, included preventing evasions and safe-guarding the rates in any event. But, since the power is in terms limited to what I may call “committee,” as opposed to “statutory,” wages, I have had some doubts whether we should construe it to comprise so drastic an exercise as is here in question. Indeed, unless it can be read to cover “statutory” wages, I do not believe that it would justify the proscription of a substantial part of the entire industry; for in that event the purpose we should have to ascribe to Congress would be nothing short of absurd. The regulation was promulgated in August, 1943, and at most could cover less than two years, except for the possibility — remote in this industry — that an “advisory committee” might thereafter reduce wages below 40 cents under § 8(e). And yet the regulation will disorganize and make over the industry, break up much family economy, and produce conditions which cannot possibly adjust themselves until after it has itself ceased to exist, when by hypothesis all will be free to go back to homework. Not only does every consideration which can support so heroic a remedy apply equally to “statutory” wages, but their exclusion so mutilates the only purpose that could have actuated the regulation, as to leave no intelligible purpose at all.

¶110Even so, I should have had the utmost *624compunction in disregarding the explicit language with which the section begins, were it not for its legislative history. The grant of power appeared in the Senate bill in its present form, where it was part of an entirely different plan: a Board was to fix all labor standards. There were amendments in the Senate which I shall come back to in a moment; but, when the bill reached the House, the whole scheme was scrapped, and wages were fixed by statute. I do not understand that in that phase, any power was given to the Administrator to protect the rates against evasion or to safeguard them; reliance being, perhaps, on his implied powers. In Conference a compromise was arranged, and a hybrid resulted; statutory rates were kept, but the Administrator had no power over them except a veto, and “advisory committees” were to fix them within prescribed limits. It was into this new plan, and into § 8, which set it up, that the power, as originally granted to the Administrator in the Senate, was 'reintroduced. Having had its origin in a plan which allowed wages to be fixed ad hoc, it took its place in that part of the act which still allowed them to be so fixed,’ though within limits. It was entirely natural that, when so introduced, the power should be thought of as limited to “committee” wages, forgetting its capricious and egregious incidence, if that were done. It does not therefore seem to me an undue liberty to give the section as a whole the meaning it must have had, in spite of the clause with which it begins. Such treatment of a statute needs no apology today, whatever were the scruples - of the past. There is no surer way to misread any document than to read it literally; in every interpretation we must pass between Scylla and Charybdis; and I certainly do not wish to add to the barrels of ink that have been spent in logging the route. As nearly as we can, we must put ourselves in the place of those who uttered the words, and try to divine how they would have dealt with the unforeseen situation; and, although their words are by far the most decisive evidence of what they would have done, they are by no means final.

¶111I have not mentioned the parenthesis, which was interpolated into what has now become § 8(f) while it was in the Senate, and which was deleted when it was restored. This grew up through step by step additions, among which “homework” was one. I think that we should misread it— built up in this way as it was — if we supposed that the process indicated more than a desire to make sure that the specified details should be included. Indeed, even though the whole parenthesis had been struck out while the original plan remained, I should have put it down to the belief that it was unwise to specify so much, lest the specification be taken as exhaustive. But that did not happen; the section, which had apparently died with the Senate plan, was lifted out of that setting, and was put into the compromise bill as it had stood originally. It would be indeed a far cry to infer from that that all the items which by accretion had made their way into the parenthesis were in this way excised from the Administrator’s powers. Indeed, if so —as he argues — he could not even regulate labels, for, although § 11(c) gives him power over records, it does not give him power over these.

¶112Finally, I cannot see that the Puerto Rico and Virgin Island amendment to § 6 stands in the way. When the Act was first passed it was not in it; it remained for two years just as it was. It would be unsafe to interpret the original meaning by an amendment made two years later; certainly, when it was a specific and detailed provision, applicable to islands where the conditions were quite different from those in the continental United States.

¶113SWAN, Circuit Judge

¶114(dissenting).

¶115These are petitions under section 10 of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, 29 U.S.C.A. § 210, by home workers and employers of home workers in the embroideries industry to review a wage order of the Administrator which establishes a minimum wage rate of 40 cents an hour and prohibits, with very limited exceptions, home work. No one questions the validity of the minimum wage portion of the order. My brothers hold valid the prohibition of home work. I shall attempt to state briefly the reasons why I cannot agree with them.

¶116Section 5 of the Act provides for the appointment by the Administrator of industry committees, each such committee being composed of representatives of the public, of employees and of employers in the industry. Section 8 prescribes the duties of the committee and of the Administrator after the committee has filed a report containing its recommendations. Subsection (b) requires that after investigating conditions in the industry the commit*625tee “shall recommend to the Administrator the highest minimum wage rates for the industry which it determines will not substantially curtail employment in the industry.” Under subsection (c) the committee may recommend classifications within the industry but the wage it recommends must not "substantially curtail employment in such classification,” nor give a competitive advantage to any group in the industry.” Under subsection (c) the report containing its recommendations the Administrator must give a hearing to interested persons and shall by order carry the recommendations into effect, if he finds that they are lawful and supported by the evidence adduced at the hearing, and, “taking into consideration the same factors as are required to be considered by the industry committee,” will carry out the purposes of section 8; otherwise he must disapprove such recommendations and again refer the matter to the same or another industry committee for further consideration and recommendation. Subdivision (d). Subdivision (e) provides that no order issued under section 8 shall remain in effect after expiration of the statutory rates specified in section 6. Then follows subdivision (f) under which the Administrator claims his power to prohibit home work. It reads as follows : “Orders issued under this section shall define the industries and classifications therein to which they are to apply, and shall contain such terms and conditions as the Administrator finds necessary to carry out the purposes of such orders, to prevent the circumvention, or evasion thereof, and to safeguard the minimum wage rates established therein.

¶117The committee which recommended the 40 cent minimum wage for the embroideries industry made no recommendation as to the abolition or restriction of home work. This issue was never presented to the committee. Had the committee known that the wage it recommended was to be accompanied by such a restriction, which, as Judge Hand well says, “will disorganize and make over the industry, break up much family economy, and produce conditions which cannot possibly adjust themselves” for a considerable period of time, the committee might well have withheld its recommendation of a minimum wage rate lest employment in the industry be substantially curtailed. The Administrator, it is true, has made a finding that employment will not be substantially curtailed. But this finding adds no support to the validity of the order in my opinion. The issue of curtailment of employment by reason of the prohibition of home work was interjected without statutory authority into the hearing held under § 8(d). That hearing is to determine whether the committee’s recommendations are made in accordance with law, are supported by the evidence, and will carry out the purposes of the section, “taking into consideration the same factors as are required to be considered by the industry committee.” As already noted the prohibition of home work was not presented to the committee and consequently was not a factor considered or required to be considered by it. Bearing in mind that under section 8(d) the Administrator must either adopt or reject the recommendations of an industry committee and is given no discretion to modify them, and that such committee is repeatedly admonished to determine that its recommendations will not substantially curtail employment, it appears to me unreasonable to suppose that Congress intended the incidental powers conferred by section 8(f) to authorize the Administrator in his uncontrolled discretion to take action so radical as to alter the whole structure of an industry and cause one-third of the employees engaged therein to become factory workers or to give up-their employment. In-my opinion “such terms and conditions” as the Administrator finds necessary “to carry out the purposes of the order or prevent evasion thereof” mean terms and conditions which are truly incidental to administration, that is, requirements as to keeping records, filing reports, etc. And this finds confirmation, I think, in the fact that the act as finally passed omitted the parenthetical definition which appeared at one stage of the legislative history of -section 8(f), namely, “such terms and conditions (including the restriction or prohibition of industrial home work or of such other acts or practices) as the Board finds necessary to carry out the purposes of such orders In my opinion so much of the order as prohibits home work should be set aside.

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