Hammer v. Dagenhart - The Act Is Challenged

No sooner was the Keating-Owen Act passed than David Clark started to organize against it. Clark was the publisher of a trade journal in Charlotte, North Carolina, a major textile center. He was also a member of the Executive Committee of Southern Cotton Manufacturers.

Clark knew he needed a test case. He went out and found Roland Dagenhart, who worked with his two teenaged sons at the Fidelity Manufacturing Company, a small cotton mill in Charlotte. Dagenhart's older son, Reuben, was 15, and if the Keating-Owen Act were enforced, he would have to work far fewer hours per week. Dagenhart's younger son was only 13, so he would not be allowed to work at all. When Fidelity Manufacturing said it would observe the new law, Clark provided the lawyers to sue both the company and W. C. Hammer, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, who would presumably be the one to enforce the law. Clark sought an injunction--a court ruling that would prevent the company from obeying the act and that would keep the federal government from enforcing it.