become
the consideration for the contract, and the laborer agrees to work for
such person for a fixed period at a certain sum per month or per year. In
a case which went through all the courts, State and Federal, the laborer
agreed to work for a year at twelve dollars per month. At the time of
entering into the contract he received fifteen dollars in money, and the
employer agreed to pay him the sum of ten dollars and seventy-five cents
per month, thus deducting a dollar and a quarter each month in payment of
the fifteen dollars advanced at the making of the contract. The employee,
after having rendered service for more than a month, left his employer. He
was afterwards indicted and convicted of failing to perform his contract
and was sentenced by the court to pay a fine of thirty dollars and the
costs, and in default thereof to hard labor "for twenty days in lieu of
said fine and one hundred and sixteen days on account of said costs." It
can be readily seen that if the laborer in this case had worked eleven
months, he would have owed the employer a dollar and a quarter, and if he
had left him might be arrested, indicted, and convicted and be made to
serve at hard labor for at least one hundred and sixteen days, the cost of
prosecuting a case involving the failure to pay one dollar and a quarter
being the same as the cost of a prosecution involving any larger sum. The
decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, rendered January 3,
1911, declares in effect legislation of this kind to be in violation of
the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution. It should be observed,
however, in this connection that when the decision was rendered there were
two vacancies in the court, and that two of the seven members then sitting
dissented from the opinion of the court, Mr. Justice Holmes and Mr.
Justice Lurton, Mr. Justice Holmes rendering the dissenting opinion. In
summing up, he said: "That a false representation expressed or implied at
the time of making a contract of labor that one intends to perform it, and
thereby obtaining an advance may be declared a case of fraudulently
obtaining money, as well as any other, that if made a crime it may be
punished like any other crime, and that an unjustified departure from the
promised service without repayment may be declared a sufficient cause to
go to the jury for their judgment, all without in any way infringing the
thirteenth amendment or the statutes of the United States." The