Will They Compromise?

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 23, 1889

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 4, No. 39.

Will They Compromise?

THE California Prohibitionist argues thus in favor of a Sunday law:—

“To Prohibitionists, especially, should it commend itself, inasmuch as it grants us one-seventh of what we are after, and puts in our hands the necessary legal appliances for enforcement. That this is a great gain over the unrestricted reign of the saloon, not only in its direct results, but also in its indirect influence, as an example of the benefits of prohibition, admits of no question. We do not contend that Sunday prohibition and Sunday rest is the end for which we should strive; but if we can secure it incidentally, we believe it will hasten the day of our final victory, and so prove a blessed factor in the advancement of sobriety and good government.”

We do not see how Prohibitionists can take such ground as this. They very properly oppose high license on the ground that it is a compromise measure. Is not Sunday closing the same? There is scarcely an argument used against high license which cannot be urged with equal force against Sunday closing of saloons. When it has once been introduced, those liquor sellers who are able to remain in the business are all in favor of high license because it gives them a monopoly of the business, and already some saloon men have declared in favor of Sunday closing, for the reason that it gives them a day off each week without materially reducing their receipts. The most of those who want to drink on Sunday will procure their liquor on Saturday if they know that they cannot get it on Sunday, and we would not be surprised to see erelong many of the liquor men wheeling into line for a Sunday law. Indeed, this has already been foreshadowed by the suggestion made in a Sunday-law convention in San Francisco, that the saloon keeper should “have a chance to rest on the Sabbath.”

Certainly, why not? And we have seen it plainly stated by at least one Prohibitionist in a so-called Prohibition paper, that if the saloons would close on Sunday it would be about all that could be reasonably asked.