Report of the Religious Liberty Department
By W. W. Prescott
This report covers a period of one year, the time during which the present secretary has been in charge of the work of the department. In view of the intimate relation between the work of the Roman Catholic Church in carrying out its announced purpose “to make America Catholic,” and the general purpose for which this department was created, it was deemed advisable one year ago to broaden the field of work of this association so that it would include the Roman Catholic question, in both its religious and political phases. It was also decided that the Protestant Magazine and Liberty should be edited in this department. Both of these magazines were then published quarterly, but commencing with October, 1912, the Protestant Magazine has been issued monthly. The work of editing these two magazines has occupied a large proportion of the secretary’s time, and has kept him quite closely confined to the home office. On assuming his duties the first of May, 1912, the present secretary found that there was pending in Congress a proviso attached to the Post-office Appropriation Bill, forbidding the opening of first- and second-class post-offices on Sundays “for the purpose of delivering mail to the general public.” The Appropriation Bill with this proviso attached had already passed the House, and in the Senate had been referred to the “Committee on Post-offices and Post-roads.” Repeated efforts were made, both by personal interviews and by correspondence, to secure a hearing before this committee, but no such privilege was granted. At the request of the chairman, Hon. Jonathan Bourne, Jr., your secretary submitted a statement setting forth the grounds on which this association was opposed to this proviso, and at the suggestion of your secretary the letters of a similar import were written by many of the religious liberty secretaries of the various conferences throughout the country. In the face of these protests, the committee in its report to the Senate called special attention to this Sunday-closing proviso, and recommended its adoption. As soon as this report was laid before the Senate, a communication was addressed to each senator, in which reasons for opposition to this legislation were again set forth. All efforts to prevent the passage of this Sunday-closing proviso were, however, unavailing, and the new regulation went into effect soon after the Appropriation Bill became a law. At the biennial session of the Columbia Union Conference, held in Pittsburgh, Pa., in April, 1912, action was taken recommending that a religious liberty institute for the religious liberty secretaries of that conference be held as soon as possible, and that the religious liberty secretaries in the Atlantic Union Conference be invited to attend this institute. In harmony with this recommendation, and under the counsel of the General Conference Committee, this institute was held at Takoma Park, May 14-16, in connection with a convention for the benefit of evangelists and city workers. There was a good attendance of religious liberty secretaries, topics of practical value were considered, and the result seemed to be helpful. At the opening of the camp-meeting season of 1912, an eight-page leaflet was prepared, entitled “Seventh-Day Adventists and the Roman Peril: Some information concerning the plans and purpose of the Roman Catholic Church in America; what these things mean to those who are giving the final message.” Copies of this leaflet, together with a supplementary sheet containing further information upon this subject, were furnished for distribution at almost every camp-meeting in this country, and an accompanying letter urged that a canvass be made of the camp to obtain subscriptions for the Protestant Magazine and Liberty. As a result of this campaign a large number of names were added to the list of each magazine. Toward the close of 1912 the negotiations which had been in progress for five or six months to secure the services of Prof. C. S. Longacre, principal of South Lancaster Academy, as assistant secretary of this department, were brought to a successful conclusion, and immediately upon being released from his duties at the academy, Professor Longacre went to the Pacific Coast, where arrangements had already been made with the executive committee of the North Pacific Union Conference for conducting a religious liberty campaign. Elder W. F. Martin, the religious liberty secretary of the union conference, had already done the necessary preliminary work in cooperation with local conference committees, and public meetings were held at which addresses upon the various phases of religious liberty were given in the leading cities of the Northwest, including Walla Walla, Spokane, Seattle, Tacoma, Wash.; Portland, Salem, Roseburg, and other cities in Oregon. Elder J. O. Corliss, of California, assisted at the opening of this campaign. Later, on invitation of the Pacific Union Conference Committee, Brother Longacre delivered similar addresses in some of the leading cities of California, including Oakland, Berkeley, St. Helena, Lodi, Mountain View, Glendale, and Los Angeles. The attendance at these meetings was generally good, and in some instances especially large and enthusiastic. The satisfactory results of this campaign have emphasized the desirability of similar efforts throughout the whole country. In the early days of the Sixty-second Congress three Sunday bills were introduced, two in the House and one in the Senate. The latter was the Johnston bill, which in one form or another has been before Congress for over five years. The two House bills were referred to the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, who reported adversely upon both of them, and the House Committee on the District of Columbia seemed to give them no further consideration. The Johnston bill, which was introduced into the Senate April 6, 1911, was considered at various times in May, June, and July of that year, and on July 18 it was placed under Rule IX, sometimes called the morgue rule, which requires a notice to all opposing senators before a bill can be brought up for a vote. From that time until January, 1913, no effort was made to pass this measure, and there was no public agitation of the question. About the beginning of the year, however, announcement was made that the friends of this bill would attempt to secure its passage before the adjournment of Congress in the following March. The secretary of the Lord’s Day Alliance of the United States, Dr. George W. Grannis, interested himself in this matter, and attempted to substitute in place of the Johnston bill a bill drafted by the legislative committee of that association, and printed in his annual report for 1912. A mass-meeting was also held in the New York Avenue Presbyterian church in this city, Sunday evening, January 12, addressed by Dr. Grannis, and by Dr. W. W. Davis, the secretary of the Lord’s Day Alliance for Maryland, who earnestly advocated a Sunday law for the District of Columbia. In opposition to the passage of the Johnston Sunday Bill your secretary entered upon an active campaign. An effective interview was published in the Washington Post of January 9; a remonstrance was prepared and sent out to be adopted in all our churches and forwarded to individual senators; two leaflets, one dealing with the Standard Bill for One Day of Rest in Seven, urged by the Commission on the Church and Social Service, a department of the Federal Council of the Churches, and the other dealing with Dr. Grannis’s bill, were prepared and sent out; blank petitions against the Johnston bill were sent to the elders of all our churches and to all religious liberty secretaries, with the request that signatures be secured and the petitions sent in to individual senators; at three different times a letter was sent from this office to each senator, drawing his attention to the pending legislation, and presenting reasons why it should not be enacted. This active campaign was kept up until Congress adjourned, March 4, without taking any action upon the measure. It is fitting that mention should be made of the hearty cooperation on the part of religious liberty secretaries, the church elders, and others, to which we9attribute in a large degree the defeat of this bill. Many personal letters received from the field testified to the interest taken in this work, and to the desire to render all possible assistance in opposing any kind of religious legislation. The fourth Sabbath in February was set apart as Religious Liberty day, and for use on that occasion readings were prepared and sent out from this office. On Sunday, March 16, the secretary united with Elder C. H. Edwards, the religious liberty secretary of the Southern New England Conference, and Elder J. E. Jayne, the religious liberty secretary of the Atlantic Union Conference, in a religious liberty institute for the benefit of the New Haven (Conn.) church and other believers in that vicinity. On invitation of Elder K. C. Russell, religious liberty secretary of the Northern Illinois Conference, seconded by the conference committee, the secretary spent four days in Chicago, April 11-14. Addresses upon the general subject of Protestantism and Romanism were delivered before large and appreciative audiences in the church in which Elder Russell had been conducting evangelistic services. The first session of the Sixty-third Congress commenced on Monday, April 7, and on April 12, less than a week after the opening of the session, Senator Johnston introduced a bill (S. 752) “for the proper observance of Sunday as a day of rest in the District of Columbia.” This is an entirely different measure from the one which Senator Johnston has been urging for the past five years, and was, in all probability, introduced at the request of the secretary of the Lord’s Day Alliance, as it is word for word the bill that he sought to substitute for Senator Johnston’s bill in the last Congress, with the exception of the penalties prescribed. This bill makes it “unlawful in the District of Columbia for any person to labor or to employ any person to labor, or to pursue any trade or worldly business on the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday, except in works of necessity or charity, and except also newspaper publishers and their employees, and except also public service corporations and their employees in the necessary supplying of service to the people of the District.” No exemption is made in favor of those who observe another day of the week than Sunday as the Sabbath. This bill also makes it “unlawful for any person, partnership, firm, corporation, or municipality, or any of their agents, directors, or officers, to require or permit any employees to work on the said day, excepting in household service, unless within the next succeeding six days during a period of twenty-four consecutive hours, he or it shall neither require nor permit such employee to work in his or its employ.” If this bill should become a law, it would, with a few exceptions, make all individual Sunday labor in the District of Columbia unlawful, and would require one day of rest in seven for all employees of firms, corporations, etc. As soon as this bill was introduced, application was made to the chairman of the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia, Senator Smith of Maryland, for a hearing where opportunity would be given for presenting reasons against the enactment of this measure. The chairman of this committee has given assurance that in case any hearing is held opportunity will be given for representatives of this association to appear, but up to the present time no definite appointment for a hearing has been made. With the change of administration a new District Committee has been appointed, and it will be no longer necessary to argue with the introducer of a bill against the passage of his own measure. By a recent decision of Judge Pugh of the Washington Police Court, an old ordinance requiring the closing of barber shops within the limits of the old city of Washington was declared void, and since that time there has been no legal hindrance to the opening of barber shops in the District of Columbia on Sunday. Soon after this decision was announced a petition, signed by two hundred ten barbers, was presented to the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, asking that they prepare and introduce into Congress a bill closing all barber shops in the District of Columbia on Sunday. As soon as he learned that such a request had been made, your secretary arranged with the president of the board of commissioners for a hearing upon this petition, and the hearing was held on Tuesday, April 29. Elder G. B. Thompson, Prof. C. S. Longacre, and your secretary represented the association at that hearing, and others, including the proprietors of the leading barber shops of the city, joined them in presenting reasons why the petition should not be granted. Reports of the hearing were printed in the city papers. Up to the present time the decision of the commissioners has not been announced. The friends of Sunday legislation have been especially active in many States during the last winter. Bills of various kinds designed to regulate the conduct of citizens on Sunday have been introduced and urged. As many as fifty-three measures of this character were presented in the State legislatures in New York and New England alone. Of special interest has been the campaign in California, where there is already a law providing for one day of rest for working men. Not content with this, however, the Sunday law advocates have made a most earnest effort to secure the passage of some kind of law which would distinguish Sunday from other days of the week. The religious liberty secretary of the Pacific Union Conference, Brother J. F. Blunt, assisted by other brethren, has conducted a strong campaign, not only in California, but also in Arizona, Nevada, and Utah. Letters have been written to the various members of the legislatures, documents bearing upon the question have been prepared and furnished to them, and hearings have been held. The defeat of all proposed Sunday legislation in these States is doubtless due in a large degree to these efforts. The religious liberty secretary of the Atlantic Union Conference, Elder J. E. Jayne, in cooperation with various State secretaries, has done a similar work in his territory. In some other union conferences religious liberty secretaries have been appointed, but they have been unable to give attention to the duties of this position on account of other work assigned to them. The State secretaries have, therefore, been obliged to do their work with little, if any, outside help. This situation ought to receive attention at this Conference. Acting in harmony with a resolution adopted at the second quadrennial meeting of the Federal Council of the Churches, held in Chicago last December, the Commission on the Church and Social Service, a department of that organization, is urging in every State the passage of what it terms the “Standard Bill for One Day of Rest in Seven.” While purporting in its title to be an act for the promotion of the public health, this bill mentions Sunday five times, and the secretary of the commission has frankly admitted that it “means the strengthening of Sunday.” This bill has already been introduced in quite a number of States, and its religious features are so successfully concealed that it seems to meet with general favor. This movement on the part of the Federal Council of the Churches calls for a nation-wide campaign in opposition to this and all similar legislation. A most significant feature of the present religious situation is what has been designated as “the invasion of Protestant lands by Rome in a spirit of fierce aggressiveness, resolute determination, infinite craft, rigid exclusiveness, and uncompromising intolerance.” The program “to make America Catholic,” as announced by the Roman hierarchy, has been followed with much earnestness, and has aroused strong opposition on the part of those who are opposed to the triumph of Roman Catholicism in this country. Many of the religious papers have joined in this opposition, and some publications have been established for the express purpose of furnishing anti-Catholic reading-matter to the public. In response to many suggestions from the field, and from a sense of duty on our own part to make the most of this opportunity to present the principles of the threefold message, the Protestant Magazine, which was started four years ago as a quarterly, was changed to a monthly last October, and the price was raised from twenty-five cents to one dollar a year. There was, of course, a temporary reduction in the list as the result of so radical a change, but the number of subscribers has steadily increased from month to month until, at present, the same number is printed each month as was formerly printed each quarter. On the subscription list are found the names of a very large number of clergymen of various denominations, who, as teachers of the people, make use of the material thus furnished, and in this way the influence of the magazine is widely extended. As the struggle for religious liberty will finally turn, in a large degree, upon the action of the Roman Catholic Church, it seems eminently proper that this phase of religious liberty effort should receive increasing attention. Your secretary submits for the consideration of the Conference the following recommendations:—
1. That each union conference appoint a religious liberty secretary who can give his whole time to the department work.
2. That suitable persons be selected from various parts of the field who, in cooperation with the union conference secretaries, shall conduct lecture campaigns during the winter of 1913-14, in490 which special attention shall be given to the fundamental truths of Protestantism from the standpoint of the threefold message, and to the fulfilment of prophecy by the Papacy.
3. That an institute be held for the benefit of such speakers as soon after the close of this Conference as can be arranged.
4. That special literature, consisting of leaflets and pamphlets of various sizes, be prepared for use in such a campaign and for general sale and distribution.
5. That the magazine Liberty be sent to the legislators in every State.
6. That a continuous campaign be conducted throughout the whole country in order to prepare the people to meet intelligently the crisis which is evidently so near at hand. In the limited time allotted to this report, it is impossible to deal with all the features of the work, and a mere outline has been presented. God’s care over his work has been very manifest, and those forces which, if unhindered, would be employed to delay, if possible, the progress of the truth have been held in check. For this every believer in the truth should be thankful, and should give himself with renewed earnestness to the proclamation of the closing message. W. W. Prescott, Secretary.