mer _v._ Dagenhart, however, did not occur
until 1941 when, in sustaining the Fair Labor Standards Act, a unanimous
Court, speaking by Justice Stone, said: "Hammer _v._ Dagenhart has not
been followed. The distinction on which the decision was rested that
Congressional power to prohibit interstate commerce is limited to
articles which in themselves have some harmful or deleterious
property--a distinction which was novel when made and unsupported by any
provision of the Constitution--has long since been abandoned. * * * The
thesis of the opinion that the motive of the prohibition or its effect
to control in some measure the use or production within the States of
the article thus excluded from the commerce can operate to deprive the
regulation of its constitutional authority has long since ceased to have
force. * * * And finally we have declared 'The authority of the Federal
Government over interstate commerce does not differ in extent or
character from that retained by the States over intrastate commerce.'
United States _v._ Rock Royal Co-operative, 307 U.S. 533, 569. The
conclusion is inescapable that Hammer _v._ Dagenhart, was a departure
from the principles which have prevailed in the interpretation of the
Commerce Clause both before and since the decision and that such
vitality, as a precedent, as it then had has long since been exhausted.
It should be and now is overruled."[519] And commenting in a recent case
on the Fair Labor Standards Act, Justice Burton, speaking for the Court
said: "The primary purpose of the act is not so much to regulate
interstate commerce as such, as it is, through the exercise of
legislative power, to prohibit the shipment of goods in interstate
commerce if they are produced under substandard labor conditions."[520]

CONGRESS AND THE FEDERAL SYSTEM

In view of these developments the following dictum by Justice
Frankfurter, was no doubt, intended to be reassuring as to the future of
the Federal System: "The interpenetrations of modern society have not
wiped out State lines. It is not for us [the Court] to make inroads upon
our federal system either by indifference to its maintenance or
excessive regard for the unifying forces of modern technology.
Scholastic reasoning may prove that no activity is isolated within the
boundaries of a single State, but that cannot justify absorption of
legislative power by the United States over every activity."[521] While
this may be conceded, the unmista