No Sunday Law Needed for Protection
33%Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 25, 1889
FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 4, No. 35.
Read the full editionNo Sunday Law Needed for Protection.
THE Union Signal says: “A W. C. T. U. tent-meeting at South Omaha, Neb., conducted by C. J. Holt, was assailed by a shower of stale eggs, which fell without discrimination upon the just and the unjust, including the ladies. Judgment was visited upon the marauders to the extent of a fine of fifty dollars.” Certainly these persons deserved punishment for their incivility, that is, for trespassing upon the rights of others. And the fact that they were punished as “marauders” and not as Sabbath-breakers, shows that no Sunday laws are needed to protect people in their right to worship. But we suppose they will keep right on asking for Sunday laws to protect public assemblies just the same. Suppose the above assault to have occurred on Wednesday, and that the only way to bring the “marauders” to justice was by the enforcement of a Sunday law. As every one knows, a Sunday law could not be enforced on Wednesday or any other day but Sunday. A Sunday law is for Sunday and no other day. Hence, if they had to depend on Sunday laws for protection, they might be rotten-egged on every day but Sunday with perfect impunity. We are stupid enough to think that after they had tried a Sunday law for a month or two to keep off the eggs, they would make up their minds that one every-day law for eggs was worth more than all the Sunday laws in existence. A Sunday law, prohibiting the running of a saloon or the throwing of “stale eggs” only one day in the week, would be a disgrace to any government. Such a law would make crime to consist in the time, instead of in the character, of an act. We believe in every-day laws for crime, and we will never consent to any law that exempts criminals from punishment six days in the week.