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Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · March 17, 1892

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 7, No. 11

The question of closing the World's Fair on Sunday has been avoided by the Senate of the New York Legislature. This is the account given by the Sun:—

Senator Hunter's resolution to ask Congress to appropriate no money to the World's Fair unless it is closed on Sunday, came up in the Senate and caused one of the religious debates which is a regular thing in one house or the other almost every day. Senator Roesch moved to refer the resolution to the World's Fair Commissioners from New York. He made a speech commenting on the Puritan fathers, and saying that this country should not follow them in their bigotry and narrowness.

The Rev. Senator Edwards said that no one wanted the World's Fair to be open on Sunday, and that there were more than ten millions of Christian people who were strongly opposed to any desecration of Sunday. There was no reason why the World's Fair at Chicago should not follow the example of the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia.

Senator O'Connor said that there are others in this country than the descendants of the Puritan fathers. The Christian religion is no part of the fundamental law of this country, and the Legislature has no right to discriminate in the passage of this resolution against people of other religions, who observe some other day than Sunday for their Sabbath.

“I believe in religion,” said Senator Brown, “but I do not think that an observance of the Sabbath day best consists in staying indoors and praying twenty-four hours. Sunday should be a day of rest and not of bondage.”

Senator McClelland said that they might as well close up Coney Island as the World's Fair, for Coney Island is much wickeder than the World's Fair would be.

Senator Roesch's motion to refer Senator Hunter's resolution to the World's Fair Commissioners was carried by a vote of sixteen to fourteen.

The Mail and Express taunts the Democrats with having “dodged a vote,” and of having been afraid to face the question. These daily “religious debates” have taken a political color entirely, and furnish a sure forecast of the national religion of the National Reformers.