Religious Liberty Department by J. O. Corliss

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 30, 1914

Religious Liberty Department

By J. O. Corliss

C. S. LONGACRE - - N. Am. Div. Secretary

California Sunday Law Prospects

For a series of years there have come regularly to the front in the California Legislature, one or more bills for the enforcement of Sunday rest on all the people, barring some notable exemptions by which to give popularity to the movement. By well-directed efforts these measures have in each case been defeated, thus giving considerable uneasiness to the promoters of the desired legislation. Two measures, however, have in the meantime been enacted into law, which have given a degree of hope to these officious ones. The Initiative and Referendum Act passed, permitting the submission of any question of civil regulation to the vote of all the people, thus to be settled without reference to the legislature. In this event, any matter carried by the votes of the people must stand as law, since the legislature has no power even to amend that which the majority vote of the people has decided to be law for the people.

This done, the next thing was to put into the hands of women franchise privileges equal to those held by men. By this act it was thought to be an easy matter to carry through the desired Sunday law, on the supposition that women voters would mostly be in favor of such a measure. But so far they have not calculated accurately; for while the women are, as a rule, more generally devoted to religion than men, they are also good readers, and have freely read religious liberty literature, which has been scattered abroad, for some years, almost like the leaves of autumn.

Yet the leaders of the Sunday law movement have, notwithstanding, arranged what they deem a model statute, and are submitting it to the people, with petitions attached which ask that a quiet Sunday rest become the law of the State by initiative vote. It should here be understood that in order to get this measure on the ballot for a vote on the third day of next November, signatures must be secured to the petitions covering eight per cent of all the votes cast for governor at the last election. This means that nearly thirty-two thousand names of legally qualified voters must be personally attached to the petitions ninety days before the date of the general election in November. More than this, each solicitor of signatures must qualify for his work by appearing before the proper officer, and after proving that he is eligible to the position, receive a certificate of that fact.

This, of course, makes considerable trouble for busy people, and not so very many are anxious thus to qualify, especially as no salary attaches to the position. Some zealous ones, however, are found who attempt the job, but, as the State records show, with only small results so far. A few days ago, in company with the president of the Pacific Union Conference, I went to the office of the secretary of state in Sacramento to make inquiry regarding the progress made in gathering signatures for the initiative submission of the Sunday bill. The book recording these was brought for our inspection, and we found that from April 15 to May 27, of this year, only 7,755 legal signatures had been received from all parts of the State. None had been received later. But what at first seemed strange, it was noticed that 7,352 of these names were filed from Los Angeles, and only 403 from all other counties of the State. This was finally accounted for by the fact that Los Angeles County is the Mecca for thousands of people who came from Eastern States, where Sunday laws are the general rule.

Talking about this with the clerk in charge, he said: “You need not worry, gentlemen. These people will never file the required number of signatures to place this measure on the ballot, for these reasons: Those counties having already filed petitions are allowed only forty days in which to file supplementary petitions. The latest counties filing so far have now only until July 7 to file additional petitions. Besides, August 4 is the latest date when any initiative petitions can be legally filed for the November election.”

When asked how the dearth of names represented was accounted for, since four years ago those opposed to Sunday laws secured 68,150 names to their petitions in about four weeks, the clerk said that the people did not want a Sunday law, because there is a feeling now that such a law would be unjust, on the ground that it would curtail the liberties of the people, and many also feared what might grow out of such a measure.

The views expressed by this officer seemed a justification of the expense incurred of late for the education of the people through leaflets and papers. But one need not quickly conclude from what has been outlined, that the danger on this point has been safely passed; for when the legislature meets next January, it will doubtless be besieged by men in clerical garb, appealing for a bill to be passed which will give the laboring man one day in seven for associated rest with his family. But like the present initiative measure, while pretending love for the “unceasing toiler” as the sole reason for such a law, that one-day-in-seven rest will surely be made to fall on Sunday in every week. Besides, the general election ballot will have for its first proposition the call for a revision of the State constitution; and if that carries at the polls, there will soon after assemble the convention provided for, when a mighty effort will be made to incorporate a Sunday law within the new constitution itself, and so place it where it could not be amended without a great deal of trouble. The people of California have, therefore, a great crisis yet to meet on this

question, when genuine lovers of religious liberty will be called to labor in behalf of an educational campaign as great as any in which they have yet been engaged.

J. O. CORLISS.