p. 22 | A Living National Issue

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 27, 1908

A Living National Issue

Things Are Lively in Washington over the Question of Prohibition and Sunday Legislation

IN the Woman's National Daily of January 15, Robert M. McWade, special correspondent of that paper at Washington, writes as follows:—

“Prohibition and Sunday legislation are the two chief points toward which the good people of the national capital, headed by the Protestant and Catholic clergy, are now bending their energies. They believe that the ‘better observance of Sunday can be best brought about by inducing Congress to pass a Sunday law for the District of Columbia, and already three bills have been introduced during this session, one ‘to further protect the first day of the week as a day of rest,’ another, ‘prohibiting Sunday labor on buildings, etc.,’ and still another, introduced by Senator Penrose of Pennsylvania, ‘to prevent Sunday banking in post-offices in the handling of money-orders and registered letters in the mail service of the United States.’”

“The Religious Liberty Bureau of the General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventists has just entered the field, and is making a strenuous Sunday-law campaign. For the purpose of enlightening Congress and the people of the country in regard to its views on the situation the Adventist bureau has prepared a statement in which, among other things, it says:—”

Then follows the bulk of a pamphlet issued by the Religious Liberty Bureau in Washington to meet the conditions now existing in that city. Nine reasons for protesting against Sunday legislation are quoted entire, copying the pamphlet verbatim. After the quotation, the article closes with the following significant paragraph [taken from the pamphlet]:—

“The demand that Congress shall pass a District Sunday law is not a mere local affair, nor does it concern simply the people of the District. It is of national significance, and concerns the people of the whole nation.”

The same paper in its issue of January 18, quotes all that portion of the same pamphlet published by the Religious Liberty Bureau, which sets forth our reasons for supporting prohibition. Since this paper goes to hundreds of thousands of readers, these articles will do a good work in setting the views of Seventh-day Adventists properly before the people of the country.—The Educational Messenger.