Michael Hodder and Q. David Bowers
Bert was strongly opposed to the proposed law. As a citizen, he felt that the law infringed upon his right to make a free contract with an employee, and abrogated the employee's right to work as many hours each day as he wanted. As a mine owner and employer, Bert argued that the reduction in hours would cost him, and other owners, 20% of their profits, resulting in a like increase in the selling prices of their goods.
Despite Bert's arguments, and organized opposition from the mining lobby in Salt Lake City, the legislation was passed and became law on March 30, 1896.
Believing the law to be unfair and an abrogation of his rights under the Fourteenth Amendment, Bert deliberately set out to test the constitutionality of the new statute. Accordingly, he hired one John Anderson to work 10 hours a day in the Old Jordan Mine and one William Hooley to work 12 hours a day in the reducing mill attached to the mine.
On June 20, 1896 complaint was made to a local justice of the peace that Bert Holden was in violation of the law by employing Anderson and Hooley for longer periods per day than' allowed by the new statute. He was ordered to desist, but refused. The justice thereupon' issued a writ for Bert's arrest, which was served by Sheriff Hardy, and Bert was taken before the justice on a charge of misdemeanor. Bert argued that the law was unconstitutional as it deprived him of his property without due process and infringed upon his rights to make contracts freely. The justice was not impressed with these pleadings, as Bert must have known he would not be, and remanded him to Sheriff Hardy's custody, fined him $50 plus $7 costs, and ordered his imprisonment in the town jail for 50 days (clearly, a dollar a day) or until the fine and costs had been paid.
Bert's lawyers sued out two writs of habeas corpus from the Utah Supreme Court for his release and discharge of the fine, again claiming the law that imprisoned him was unconstitutional, but the court refused his pleas. His applications denied, Bert sued writs of error from the United States Supreme Court, assigning unconstitutionality of the state law as his basis.
The case was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on October 21, 1897; and decided on February 28, 1898. Based as it was largely upon the recently ratified Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which had not been exhaustively examined by the Court previously, Bert's case represented the first detailed rehearsal of case law arising under the Fourteenth Amendment carried out by the. Court. In writing their opinion, which was 7 to 2 against Bert, the Court declared two legal principles that have since become fundamental to the development of law in the United States.
In the first place, the Court held that limitations on the working day imposed by state legislatures are proper statements of the responsibility states have for ensuring the common good and health of their citizens, and therefore are legal exercises of the police power granted states by the Constitution. The Court's opinion thus allowed a wider interpretation of the states' police power than before, and specifically declared constitutional its exercise to set the length of the working day in industries held to be particularly hazardous to the health of employees. Holden vs. Hardy thus became a landmark decision in the history of labor relations in the United States, serving as an important foundation for state regulation of the workplace. The eight-hour day, 40-hour week most employee stake for granted today was a hard won battle. This case was one of the bigger steps on the road to labor's victory.
The second principle enunciated by the Court in its decision was more fundamental to the later development of law in our country. In examining the cases brought before them which arose from applications of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Court held that, in its application, law should be flexible enough to recognize that public needs and relationships can change over time. The Fourteenth Amendment itself could be seen as an application of this principle, in that restrictions once placed on the conduct of a class of persons were, by its passage, removed when they were held to be iniquitous by a later generation. Further, the Court held that there existed particular classes of persons, particularly those engaged in hazardous or unhealthy occupations, who required additional protection under the Constitution.
Essentially, then, in their decision the Court upheld what has later been termed a "loose constructionist" interpretation of the Constitution, and Holden vs. Hardy was a very liberal reading of the country's fundamental legal document. In broad view, the Court's intention was to allow lower federal and state courts to apply a generous reading of the Fourteenth Amendment to cases arising from it; and to extend its protection beyond a literal reading of its wording to include citizens in particular need of additional remedy at law.
A detailed discussion of the legal points raised by the parties to the case will be found accompanying this text.
The Collectors Mind
We mentioned in our introduction to this chapter that no correspondence regarding Bert Holden's coin collection can be found today. The reason for this lack is easily understood. After his death, in May 1913, his estate and family were cared for by a brother and sister while the children were still minors. Three years later, his daughter Emery May Holden, born in 1896, left the United States, and, except for a few brief stays, did not return permanently until after 1948 when her husband, R. Henry Norweb, Sr., retired from diplomatic service. In the intervening years Bert's correspondence files became misplaced or were dispersed.
We have searched for copies of his correspondence that may have been kept by the Chapmans, Lyman Low, Thomas Elder, and other coin dealers with whom Bert had business relationships. We have also looked for correspondence from such numismatic professionals to Bert. Unfortunately for the history of our hobby, apparently none of these early dealers' correspondence files has survived the years. Consequently, we cannot describe for our readers details of transactions from Bert's time, as we have for Emery May Norweb in a later chapter of this book.
However, academic institutions have long memories, none longer than Harvard's. Bert,'9 correspondence with Professor J.E. Wolff of the Mineralogy Department has been preserved, and with the kind permission of Mr. Carl Francis, curator of the Mineralogy Collection; we have examined Bertis letters and other papers conserved at Harvard. The correspondence, naturally, concerns Bert's mineral collecting activities, dating from 1893 through 1912. A careful reading of his letters, however, shows how Bert collected, what he thought was important in his specimens, and how he got along with dealers and other collectors. Collecting habits, in their broadest outlines, are largely common to all hobbies. Given what we know about Bert's coin collection, it is apparent that his numismatic collecting habits were similar to his mineralogical collecting ones and may have been formed by them. In fact, if we read his letters about minerals and substitute the word "coin" for "mineral"' the letters could just as well describe his coin collection as his mineral collection.