The rise of substantive due process:
Substantive due process: Amelioration of working conditions Johnson v. Goodyear Mining Co. – California, 1899 (59 P. 304); Ex parte Dickey – California, 1904 (77 P. 924); Jordan v. State – Texas, 1907 (103 S.W. 633); Ex parte Miller – California, 1912 (124 P. 427), affirmed, 236 U.S. 373 (1915); Ex parte Farb – California, 1918 (174 P. 320)
“How much is there of mutual freedom of contract between the proprietor, who has his choice and time in the matter of selecting his servants, and the average applicant for the position of waiter or bellboy or chambermaid, whose every hour of unemployment is a step nearer to starvation? We have already banished this fiction from many of our statutes.” – Justice _ Richards (dissenting), in Farb
Substantive due process: Promoting workers rights St. Louis Southwestern Railway Co. of Texas v. Griffin – Texas, 1914 (171 S.W. 703); Poye v. State – Texas, 1920 (230 S.W. 161)
| ![]() Bagging factory, Houston, Texas (1920) - courtesy Wikimedia Commons
![]() Deportation of striking miners, Bisbee, Arizona (1917) - courtesy Arizona Historical Society and Wikimedia Commons
“The corporation and the laborer are prohibited from making any contract whereby wages are to become due for a longer period than one month as a period of employment, or by which the laborer is to be paid in anything except money or negotiable checks. The working man of intelligence is treated as an imbecile.” – Justice __, in Johnson
“Here, then, is laid down a most drastic rule governing the conduct of a man in the prosecution of a harmless, legitimate, and beneficial business.” – Justice _, in Dickey
“Under some circumstances, a class of persons … are in reality compelled to act at the dictation of others, whose self-interest leads them to take an undue advantage; and in such cases the Legislature may, in the exercise of police powers, declare that certain contracts, which … it deems injurious to the general welfare and prosperity of the people, shall not be made, and, if made, shall not be enforceable.” - Justice _ Shaw (dissenting), in Dickey
“The statute … is .. violative of the right of the laborer to make contracts with his employer or to sell his labor for any consideration satisfactory to himself, or for the payment of his labor in any commodity suitable to himself.” - Justice _, in Jordan
“The requirement that the corporation give to the discharged employe, on his demand, a statement of the ‘true cause’ for his discharge, necessarily implies that there must have been a cause to justify the dismissal, else, how could the ‘true cause’ be given? The value of the contract to each party consisted largely in the mutual right to dissolve the relation of master and servant at will. The destruction of that right in the corporation was a violation of its liberty of contract.” – Justice _, in Griffin |
EMPIRE OF LAWS - The Legal History of the 50 American States > 7. SOUTHWEST LEGAL HISTORY > 7.3 Southwest Legal History: Grappling with Growth (1900-1930) > 7.3.1 Southwest (1900-1930): Mixed Progress for Civil Rights >