Attention has been called to the conflicting views of the courts of New York and Illinois, and the federal Supreme Court, with reference to the constitutional rights of women. Similar differences may appear with regard to drawing the line between legitimate and arbitrary discrimination. It is important to observe that the more liberal view in favor of the legislative power held by the Supreme Court of the United States is not binding on the states. It is different where the state courts take the more liberal view. When the Supreme Court decided that a ten-hour law for bakers violated the fourteenth amendment, the New York law fell, and similar legislation in all other states was invalidated or made impossible. If the Supreme Court should decide, as it probably would, that the prohibition of night work of women does not violate the fourteenth amendment, the court of appeals of New York, while it might revise and overrule its own decision to the effect that such prohibition is invalid, would not be bound to do so, but would have the right to insist that the constitution of New York protects individual right against legislative power more effectually than does the federal constitution. And so it is well understood that the supreme court of Illinois, in passing upon the validity of the ten-hour law of that state, copied from the law of Oregon which the Supreme Court of the United States sustained, is not bound, though it may be properly influenced, by that decision; the federal authority is persuasive, but not controlling. This results from the fact that the fourteenth amendment was enacted as a protection against the abuse of legislative power, and is not concerned with legislative inaction or impotence, induced by the construction which the state courts put upon the state constitution.