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Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · June 2, 1892

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 7, No. 22

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At Washington.

The Senate Committee on the District of Columbia has decided to report favorably the bill to prohibit the sale and delivery of ice, in the District, on Sunday, with amendments permitting such sale and delivery between the hours of seven and nine in the morning and five and six in the evening, while the House has taken time by the forelock and passed the bill, without so much as a word of debate, except a gentle reminder from Mr. O’Neil of Missouri that hot weather was coming on and the chances were that Congress would sit all summer and might need ice (to cool its heated discussions no doubt), but even this did not find its way into the published record. This matter is worthy of note as the first distinctive legislation on the Sunday question by either branch of Congress, and because of the fact that the wording of the bill causes the House to decide authoritatively the question as between the seventh and the first day, that the record in Genesis is wrong and that Sunday is the Sabbath. The importance of this step by Congress on the broad road to a union of religion and the State warrants an excerpt from the Congressional Record. This is the record of the passage of the bill:—

DELIVERY OF ICE ON SUNDAY.

MR. HEMPHILL. Mr. Speaker, I call up the bill (H. R. 8867) prohibiting the delivery and sale of ice within the District of Columbia on the Sabbath day, commonly known as Sunday.
The bill was read, as follows:—
Be it enacted, etc. That from and after the passage of this act it shall be unlawful to sell or deliver ice in any quantity or quantities, by means of wagons or other vehicles, on the public streets or thoroughfares or at depots or offices within the District of Columbia on the Sabbath day, commonly known as Sunday.
SEC. 2. That any person or corporation violating the provisions of this act shall be liable to a penalty of not less than $25 nor more than $50 for each offense, upon conviction in the police court of the District of Columbia.
SEC. 3. That all acts or parts of acts inconsistent with this act be, and the same are hereby, repealed.
The Committee on the District of Columbia recommended the following amendment to come in after the word “Sunday” in line 7.
In line 7 insert “except between the hours of 7 and 9 o’clock ante meridian and 5 and 6 o’clock post meridian.”
The amendment was agreed to.
The question was taken on the engrossment and third reading of the amended bill, and the Speaker declared that the “noes” seemed to have it.
MR. HEMPHILL. Mr. Speaker, there are 3,000 employees asking for this bill, and the ice companies have agreed upon it. In nearly every city in the country from New York down, the sale and delivery of ice on Sunday is entirely prohibited. These employes work now fourteen hours a day, and this bill will relieve them by limiting their work on Sundays to three hours a day, two hours in the morning and one in the afternoon. It is simply a measure in the interest of these people who are overworked, and I do not think there can be any objection to it.
MR. PICKLER. Why would not one delivery a day on Sunday be enough?
MR. HEMPHILL. They think that this bill is reasonable.
MR. HEARD. And that it will give better service.
MR. HEMPHILL. Yes; that it will give better service. I ask for a vote.
The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time.
The question was taken on the passage of the bill, and the Speaker declared that the “noes” seemed to have it.
On a division there were—ayes 76, noes 21.
So the bill was passed.
On motion of MR. HEMPHILL, by unanimous consent, the title was changed so as to read: “A bill regulating the delivery and sale of ice within the District of Columbia on the Sabbath day, commonly known as Sunday.”
The bill will be brought upon its passage in the Senate soon, no doubt, yet, before the Senate shall have acted the icemen will probably demonstrate the entire lack of necessity for any such legislation by ceasing to deliver ice on Sunday, by mutual consent. Employees of the different ice companies have said when questioned as to the cause and necessity for such action in their behalf by Congress, that it only arose through the fears of the different companies, each that the other would continue to deliver on Sunday, and through a monopoly of the delivery on that day secure the others’ customers; it seemed to be the opinion among them, however, that the principal company, delivering in the city, would stop sending out its wagons for general delivery, on Sunday, at all events, although the bill should not become a law.
The favor with which this bill has been received by the House and the District Committee of the Senate has already roused those who are interested in promoting this line of legislation to a consideration of the advisability of drafting and presenting a similar bill in reference to the sale of groceries on Sunday. It is evident that as soon as the smallest modern precedent shall have been established, committing Congress to this class of legislation, it will be immediately followed by other and more pronounced measures. The complexion of this Congress is much more religious, superficially, than the last. While it would not bend the knee to the theory of the divine right of governmental paternalism so readily, yet it would yield more unthinkingly to the authoritative demands of its individual pastors and religious masters.