In enlightened America the courts, presided over by men to whom manual labor is known only in theory, have persistently ruled that the _Constitution forbade the State to make laws protecting women workers_.

It has seemed to most of our courts and most of our judges that the State fulfilled its whole duty to its women citizens when it guaranteed them the right freely to contract--even though they consented, or their poverty consented, to contracts which involved irreparable harm to themselves, the community, and future generations.

The women of this country have done nothing more important than to educate the judiciary of the United States out of and beyond this terrible delusion..