p. 324 | Untitled article

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · October 16, 1890

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 5, No. 41

Hits Them Too.

FREETHINKERS have discovered that they, as well as the Mormons, might easily be disfranchised under the Idaho test oath. Commenting upon that oath, and how it would affect seventh-day Christians should Idaho adopt a rigid Sunday law, the Truth Seeker says:—

It occurs to us also that the Freethinkers are in the same boat. It is true that infidels do not teach as a religious duty that labor on Sunday is particularly righteous, but they do teach that it is just as righteous as working on any day. This they do from a common-sense standpoint, which would come under the statutory description of “otherwise” than as a religious duty. Therefore, if Idaho shall by law define labor on Sunday as a crime, and disfranchise all who advise, teach, counsel, or encourage it, the Freethinkers of the State, and they are legion, will have to be hypocrites or be classed with Mormons and deprived of their voting rights.

So it is with a great many other things which are artificially made crimes by legislation. In some States, like New Jersey, for instance, speaking contumeliously of Christ is blasphemy, and blasphemy is a crime. Yet there are thousands of Freethinkers, particularly in the boundless West, who . . . do speak of Christ in just that manner. . . . But suppose Idaho should borrow New Jersey’s blasphemy law. . . . And with a prohibitory law, beer-sellers would be disfranchised, and so would all anti-prohibitionists who advise resistance to the law. . . . The oath, therefore, very plainly goes too far. If it should be rigorously administered, the voters of Idaho would be diminished to an extremely small proportion of the population. Most people object to one or more of their State’s statutes, and suppose Anarchists Tucker and Pentecost, who object to all laws, should move out to Idaho—why, two of the most intelligent and best citizens of the State couldn’t get within miles of the polls.

It is indeed apparent that the Idaho test oath does, as we said a week or two ago, go too far. It ought to be abolished.