Sunday and Liberty

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 6, 1908

Sunday and Liberty

Mr. H. F. Staple, editor and publisher of the Atchison County Mail, a member of the last Missouri Legislature, has given vigorous expression to his views on the recent agitation for the closing of theaters and the like in Kansas City, Mo., on Sunday. In a letter to Hon. Colin M. Selph, of St. Louis, declining an invitation to attend the annual holiday entertainment of the Democratic club of that city (printed in the Kansas City, Mo., Workers' Record of Jan. 1, 1908), he says:—

“One thing I have on my mind, and which I have wished to express myself upon, is this: Why should so well learned and good a man as our Democratic judge at Kansas City forbid the people to go out to baseball games or theaters on Sunday afternoons, or to go to parks or to other sports; or keep druggists from disposing of cigars, ice-cream, etc., on Sunday? Is there any law in this State forbidding these small privileges and enjoyments to our people? If so, why did the would-be reformers have a bill introduced in the last legislature of this State asking for the abolishment of Sunday theaters or sports of any kind?”

“I had the honor of being upon the committee of criminal jurisprudence, and when that bill came before us (in the last Missouri Legislature), I made a motion that the committee recommend that the bill do not pass, and the motion was seconded by a good man from your city. The committee almost unanimously turned down the bill, and it suffered the same fate in the House, regardless of policies or politics.

“I hold that the freedom of the individual is limited only by the like freedom of other individuals, and is sacred; and that the legislature can not equitably put further restrictions upon it, either by forbidding any action which the law of equal freedom permits, or by taking away any property save that required to pay the cost of enforcing the law itself. I assert that the sole function of the state is the protection of persons against one another and against a foreign foe. That, as throughout civilization, the manifest tendency has been to continually extend the liberties of the subject and restrict the functions of the state, there is reason to believe that the ultimate political condition must be one in which personal freedom is the greatest possible and the governmental power the least possible; that, namely, in which the freedom of each has no limit, but the like freedom of all; while the sole governmental duty is the maintenance of this limit.

“If a law should be passed preventing people from enjoying themselves at innocent amusements on Sundays, so long as they did not interfere with the rights of others, we would not only be violating the Declaration of Independence and the constitution of the State of Missouri, but that of the United States as well. The framers of these instruments, the greatest human documents ever written, guaranteed to the people the greatest liberty consistent with public order, and it was their intention that all our people should have a greater portion of liberty and freedom in the United States than anywhere else on the face of the earth.”