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Untitled article

C. P. B.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · June 23, 1892

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 7, No. 25

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ON another page of this paper will be found a detailed account of the trial of W. S. Lowry, one of the four Seventh-day Adventists, now in jail in Paris, Tenn., for doing quiet farm labor on Sunday. We trust that every reader of THE SENTINEL will peruse the whole report carefully. It is a sample of the other cases tried the same day.
IN these cases the defendants all refused to plead unqualifiedly, because they felt that they could not honestly either assent to or deny the indictment as a whole. It was true that they had worked on Sunday. They felt that it was not true that the work was “to the great annoyance and disturbance of the people, to the evil example of morals, and a public nuisance to the citizens of the county, and against the peace and dignity of the State.” Hence the refusal to plead.
It will be observed that in the case of W. S. Lowry only a single act of Sunday work was proved, except by the first witness, one of his own brethren in the church. And a single instance of Sunday work would not constitute a nuisance, even under Tennessee law. Without the testimony of T. F. Dortch, W. S. Lowry could not have been convicted; and yet, the indictment charges that his work was done “to the great annoyance and disturbance of the people.” If this were true why were not some of “the people” there to testify to the annoyance? There can be but one answer to the question, namely, that the “annoyance,” and “disturbance” was only the intolerance which springs eternal in the breast of the bigot at the knowledge that others believe and practice differently from himself. It was simply the annoyance of knowing that Mr. Lowry was a Seventh-day Adventist, and that it is the habit of Adventists to rest on the seventh day and to work on Sunday.
THE character of the “annoyance” and “disturbance” occasioned by the Sunday work of the Seventh-day Adventists in Tennessee, is well illustrated by the following incident related to the writer by one of them.
Shortly before the prosecutions in question, a Methodist living a little out of the Adventist neighborhood, said to a member of the Adventist Church:
“You people are doing a great deal of harm in this country.”
“Why, how is that?” said the Adventist. “We are quiet, inoffensive people.”
“Yes,” responded the Methodist, “but were it not for your church we [the Methodists] would have regular meetings here at Springville, and all the young people who now go to your meetings would be working members of the Methodist Church.”
“Well,” responded the Adventist, “show us our error and we will all be Methodists.”
“That just what we’re going to do,” replied the Methodist; “we’re going to prosecute every one of you.”
And yet some people say that these Sunday prosecutions are not religious persecution, but only the enforcing of the civil law! Well, that is all any religious persecution ever was. Except in isolated cases of mob violence, religious persecution has always been under the color and forms of civil law.
ANOTHER noticeable feature of these Sunday cases is the latitude taken by the Attorney-General; for instance, the law confines the inquiry to one year before the finding of the indictment; but we find the Attorney-General asking T. F. Dortch these questions:—
Q. How near do you live to him [the defendant], Mr. Dortch?
A. About three hundred yards.
Q. How long have you lived there, Mr. Dortch?
A. About four years.
Q. How long has he been living there?
A. About six years.
Q. Have you seen him at labor, his common every day labor within that time?
This was no slip on the part of the Attorney for the State. He did the same thing in other cases, and persisted in it until told by the Judge to confine his questions to the twelve months immediately preceding the finding of the indictment.
ANOTHER inconsistency in these trials was that while the Judge charged the jury that it was “not a question of religious belief or conviction at all either one way or the other,” the Attorney-General asked such questions as these:—
“Are you a member of that church?”
“Is it the habit of members of your church to labor on Sunday?”
“There is a number of you gentlemen that belong to that church living in the same neighborhood?”
“Have you seen him go to church on Sunday?”
What place have such questions in cases that have nothing to do with “religious belief or conviction at all either one way or the other”? The fact is that the whole thing is a question of religious belief and conviction, and it is impossible to make it otherwise.
It has all along been stated that “while the law compels the observance of Sunday it leaves a man perfectly free to keep any other day he may see fit.” This assertion was made by the Attorney-General in the case of W. S. Lowry, but in the case of James Stem, another of the men convicted for Sunday labor, the claim was disproved, and it was shown that a law requiring Sunday rest just as certainly requires Saturday labor for the average man dependent upon manual labor for a livelihood. The defendant, Mr. Stem, asked one of the witnesses for the State,a Mr. Cox, who was not an Adventist: “Do you consider it necessary for a man to work six days?” Answer:— “Yes, sir.” The witness was then asked by the Attorney-General: “You do not think it necessary for people to work on Sunday, do you?” Answer:— “No, sir.” But Mr. Cox had already testified that it was necessary to work six days; therefore, according to this witness for the State of Tennessee, the man who believes that he ought to keep the seventh day, is, by the Sunday law of Tennessee, under the necessity of violating either his conscience or the law of the State. He is not left perfectly free to keep any day, but must keep Sunday or else fail of securing what are termed the necessaries of life. C. P. B.