Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“ There hardly seems to be a reason why it should adopt a different rule for people subject to its authority because they are upon a private vessel registered abroad. They are not within the exception as to public armed vessels of a foreign sovereign, whatever its extent. ”

“ Perhaps it would be a sufficient answer to the objections that while the section 33 is construed to give the rights of seamen to stevedores it does not say or mean that stevedores are to be regarded as seamen on the particular vessel upon which for the moment they happen to be at work. They simply are given the rights of seamen and as they are American workmen they have the rights of American seamen as well on German as on American ships. ”

“ But that section merely provides that for the purposes of the chapter 'seaman' shall include persons who otherwise might be deemed not to be seamen. It is directed to extension not to restriction, as remarked by Judge Crane in Resigno v. F. Jarka Co., 248 N. Y. 225, 242, 162 N. E. 13. Then it is argued that the grant of jurisdiction to the Court of the District in which the defendant employer resides or has his principal office without granting a proceeding in in the case of tramp steamers from abroad shows that seamen on a foreign vessel were not contemplated. ”

“ But the question is raised whether the statute applies to a stevedore working on a vessel that we assume to have been German, since she flew the German flag.
The language of the statute is general. The right is given to 'any seaman,' including, as we have aid , stevedores. The jurisdiction and the authority of Congress to deal with the matter are unquestionable and unquestioned. Cunard Steamship Co. v. Mellon, 262 U.S. 100, 124 et seq., 43 S.C.t. 504, 67 L. Ed. 894, 27 A. L. R. 1306. The conduct regulated is of universal concern. ”