156 UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE UNITED STATES 
prohibited from such commerce. In fact, at the outset of his dissent- 
ing opinion, Mr. Justice Holmes said: 
The objection urged against the power is that the States have exclusive control 
over their methods of production and that Congress can not meddle with them, 
and taking the proposition in the sense of direct intermeddling I agree to it and 
suppose that no one denies it. 
The next case is the case of Bailey ». Drexel Furniture Company, 
259 U. 8, 20), decided in 1922. That is the child labor tax case. 
A review of the decisions of the Supreme Court will reveal that, 
instead of recognizing any authority in the Congress to invade by 
legislation fields not included within the specific powers delegated to 
the Federal Government by the terms of the Constitution, the Court 
has frowned upon and thwarted efforts of Congress to stretch those 
specific powers to enable it to accomplish objects seemingly for the 
general good or general welfare. 
Reverting for a moment to Chief Justice Taft’s opinion in the child 
labor tax case (Bailey ». Drexel Company), I would point out that 
while the attempt through the taxing power to control local affairs has 
been curbed, Congress has devised and put into operation a scheme 
whereby it uses the proceeds of the taxing power to purchase from the 
States a right on the part of the Federal Government to intermeddle 
in the purely local affairs of the States, affairs over which and as to 
which the States’ authority and responsibility are exclusive, and that 
scheme is, of course, the so-called 50-50 Federal-aid method. 
Now, if the committee please, the only theory upon which the pro- 
ponents of this sort of legislation can come to Congress and insist 
that it be enacted into the Federal statutes, is this: The theory that 
the Federal Government must meddle in every phase of local and 
community life must proceed upon the theory that the States are 
unable and unwilling to meet their own problems from poverty of 
riches, intelligence, and moral resources. And I submit to you gen- 
tlemen representing the various States of the Union that there is no 
State so degraded that it has not the financial, moral, and intel- 
lectual resources sufficient to meet all the reasonable needs of its 
people, and I challenge any Member of Congress to rise in his place 
and to admit that his State is a so-called backward State, unable, 
unwilling, to meet the needs of its people. And unless States are 
unwilling and unable to meet the needs of their peoples, there is no 
excuse for even considering injecting the Federal Government into 
the regulation of their local affairs. 
Mr. Montague. May I ask you one question? 
Mr. Peckuam. Yes, sir. 
Mr. MonTaGUE. Suppose a State is unwilling to do it; what 
authority has the National Government? 
Mr. Pecknam. The Federal Government has no authority what- 
ever, even though a State is unwilling to do it. 
Mr. MonTaGUE. Does not the right to do or not to do belong 
absolutely to each State government? 
Mr. PeckraM. Absolutely, sir. 
Mr. MonTAGUE. And assuming that the State is absolutely within 
its powers. 
Mr. Peckaam. Yes. But I am not willing to assume, as the pro- 
ponents of this sort of legislation must be willing to assume, that 
there is any State of this Union that is in so decraded a condition