755 Opinion of the Court. It is nonetheless the employer. Of course, if Congress had intended the absence of profit to be material and had provided that the employees of agricultural cooperatives should be exempted because their work is done for the benefit of the farmers who own the cooperatives, we should honor that provision. But the legislative history of the existing definition clearly shows that no such result was intended.19 We conclude therefore that the Court of Appeals correctly determined that the field employees of the company are not exempt from the provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act as persons employed in agriculture.20 There remains for consideration the bookkeeper's case. The Court of Appeals limited its reversal of the District Court to the field employees because it regarded the bookkeeper as exempt, in any event, as an administrative employee. We need not decide whether it erred in so doing, since the company in this Court disclaims-as it did in the District Court-any reliance on the administrative exemption. And our discussion with regard to the field employees makes it clear that the Court of 19 The debate in both Houses shows a clear awareness that the employees of farmers cooperative associations would not be exempted as employees of farmers. At various times amendments were offered, and adopted, exempting the employees of certain types of cooperatives. See 81 Cong. Rec. 1947 (1937), 82 Cong. Rec. 1783 (1937). All such special exemptions were, however, omitted from the bill as it finally became law. See also Interpretative Bulletin, issued by the Administrator, Wage & Hour Division, 29 C. F.-R. 1947 Supp., §§ 780.81, 780.82. 20 While it lacks relevance to the question of congressional intention in 1938, we may note that the precise question here involved was discussed at length on the Senate floor in 1946 in connection with certain amendments to the Fair Labor Standards Act. It was clearly stated, without objection, that employees of an irrigation company which supplied water to farmers were, like the employees of a power company which supplies electricity to farmers, not exempt as employed in agriculture. 92 Cong. Rec. 2318-2319 (1946). JACKSON, J., dissenting. 337 U.S. Appeals decision is, in the absence of any claim of administrative exemption, equally applicable to the bookkeeper. It has been stipulated that his work is a necessary part of the operation of the company's water supply system. The fact that it is clerical rather than manual is immaterial. Borden Co. v. Borella, 325 U. S. 679 (1945). It follows that his case is on all fours with that of the field workers and that he is engaged, as they are, in the production of goods for commerce and is not exempt as employed in agriculture. The judgment of the Court of Appeals, reversing the District Court and remanding the case to it, should, therefore, be treated as applicable to both types of employee. As so modified, the judgment is MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER, Concurring. Affirmed. Both in the employments which the Fair Labor Standards Act covers and in the exemptions it makes, the Congress has cast upon the courts the duty of making distinctions that often are bound to be so nice as to appear arbitrary in relation to each other. A specific situation, like that presented in this case, presents a problem for construction which may with nearly equal reason be resolved one way rather than another. Except when a conflict between Courts of Appeals requires settlement by this Court, it does not seem to me very profitable to bring the individual cases here for adjudication. But since this case is here it has to be decided. The nature of the problem being what it is, I acquiesce in the judgment that commends itself to the majority of my brethren. MR. JUSTICE JACKSON, dissenting. If employees operating these irrigation works are so necessary to the raising of crops destined for interstate commerce that they are "producing goods for commerce" 755 JACKSON, J., dissenting. within the Fair Labor Standards Act, I cannot agree that they are not "employed in agriculture" within its exemptions. It is admitted that as a separate enterprise this handling of irrigation water does not bring these employees within the Act regulating interstate commerce, because the water is captured, stored, transmitted, delivered and consumed solely within one state. The reasoning by which they are nevertheless brought under the Act is this: To deliver water on arid lands is so inseparable from agriculture thereon that it is to produce goods, that is, agricultural crops, for commerce. However, 29 U. S. C. § 213 (a) (6) exempts individuals "employed in agriculture." It would seem logical that one who is producing agricultural products for commerce is "employed in agriculture." But according to the Court he is not. The irrigation activity seems endowed with some esoteric duplicity not apparent on its face. When we read 29 U. S. C. § 206 or § 207, the irrigator is producing crops because his activity is inseparable from crop production; but when we read on a half-dozen sections and get to 29 U. S. C. § 213 (a) (6), the irrigation has been converted into a distinct and disconnected enterprise. This paradox is attributed to the definition of agriculture in 29 U. S. C. § 203 (f), which is said to make a distinction between agricultural production "in a normal sense" and the same thing "in the special sense" of § 3 (j) of the statute, 29 U. S. C. § 203 (j). However, its text and history seem to show that the congressional purpose was not to make the agricultural exemption less comprehensive than "normal" agricultural operations but to make certain that nothing connected with farming remained subject to the Act. It exempted "any practices. performed by a farmer or on a farm as an incident to or in conjunction with such farming operations." Thus the farm exemption did not end at the line fence. JACKSON, J., dissenting. 337 U.S. This irrigation seems to me to be "performed by a farmer" and hence, by definition, part of the operation of agriculture. Certainly the agricultural exemption is not lost because farmers pool their capital through a mutual, nonprofit corporation for no other purpose whatever than to carry water to their own arid lands to make it possible to produce crops. The only purpose of the corporate form is to limit individual liability for a project which is subsidiary to each farmer's main enterprise but which is beyond the means or demands of any of them as individuals. Only the landowners can become stockholders; only the stockholders can become water users, and the operating costs and capital charges are met by assessing them in proportion to their water benefits. Employees engaged in the water operation would be on a quite different footing if it were a water company selling water to the public or the farmer for profit. If, as the Court holds, these employees are engaged in production of agricultural crops for commerce, I do not see how it can hold that they are not engaged in agriculture. If the Court could say "To be or not to be: that is the question," it might reasonably answer in support of either side. But here the Court tells us that the real solution of this dilemma is "to be" and "not to be" at the same time. While this is a unique contribution to the literature of statutory construction, I can only regret the great loss to the literature of the drama that this possibility was overlooked by the Bard of Avon. It will probably now be as great a surprise to the proponents of the agricultural exemption as it would have been to Shakespeare, had it been suggested to him. Syllabus. GIBBS v. BURKE, WARDEN. CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA. No. 418. Argued April 21-22, 1949. Decided June 27, 1949. Petitioner, a man in his thirties, was tried and convicted in a Pennsylvania state court for larceny, and was sentenced to imprisonment for 22 to 5 years. He conducted his own defense, appointment of counsel having been neither requested by petitioner nor offered by the court. At the trial, considerable hearsay and otherwise incompetent evidence prejudicial to petitioner was admitted; the prosecuting witness, being recalled for further cross-examination, was made a witness for petitioner, to the latter's detriment; petitioner was prevented from proving a fact clearly relevant to his defense; and the trial judge, advising petitioner of his privilege against self-incrimination, made reference in the presence of the jury to petitioner's criminal record. Petitioner's subsequent application to the State Supreme Court for a writ of habeas corpus, claiming a denial of federal constitutional right on his trial, was denied. Held: 1. The federal question was adequately raised, and the case is properly considered here on its merits. P. 779. (a) Reliance on the Sixth rather than the Fourteenth Amendment in the habeas corpus petition was not fatal, since meticulousness in procedural allegations is not essential in a habeas corpus proceeding. P. 779. (b) It appears that habeas corpus was a proper method of testing the constitutionality of the conviction and that it was within the original jurisdiction of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. P. 779. 2. The facts of the case, particularly the occurrences at the trial, sufficiently show that petitioner was handicapped by lack of counsel to such an extent that he was denied a fair trial contrary to the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Pp. 774-778, 780-782. Reversed. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, in an original proceeding, denied petitioner's application for a writ of habeas corpus. This Court granted certiorari, 335 U. S. |