Untitled article by W. H. M.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · January 19, 1893

A Day of Contending Parties.

By W. H. M.

More eloquence was heard, and a much greater interest aroused, on the third day of the hearing before the World's Fair Committee, than on either of the preceding days. The committee sat from ten o'clock until half past twelve, and the time was divided equally between the contending parties. Dr. Atterbury, of the New York Sabbath Committee, introduced the speakers who favored the Sunday-closing law as it stands. Dr. Atterbury stated that the New York Sabbath Committee, as an organization for the enforcement of Sunday rest, had been in existence thirty-five years, and was not of a theological caste as to membership, but was composed of business and workingmen. Letters were read from John E. Parsons and Mr. John Bigelow, of New York, in which they both took unqualified ground in favor of the complete Sunday closing of the Fair. The speakers who followed upon this side of the question were Bishop Hurst, of Washington, D. C.; Robert L. Belknap, of New York; the Rev. Dr. McKim, of Washington, D. C.; Gifford Agnew, of New York; Mr. Cornell, of Maryland; the Rev. Dr. Herrick Johnson, of Chicago; the Rev. Dr. Blanchard, of Illinois, and the Rev. Dr. Brooks, of New York.

Those who addressed the committee in opposition to the views of the Sunday closers, were a delegation of three ladies, Mrs. Boyesen, Mrs. Remick and Mrs. Washburne, from the Woman's Club, of Chicago; Miss Susan B. Anthony; Rev. Mr. Cross, of Ohio; Rev. Minot J. Savage, of Boston; Mr. Putnam, of California; Rev. Dr. A. H. Lewis, of New Jersey, and Mr. Jas. T. Ringgold, of Baltimore.

The points presented for Sunday closing were but a reiteration of those previously made, only in some instances expressed with an even greater skill of diction, and vigor of intensity. One minister published quite fully his lamentable inability to recognize the distinction between the crime of polygamy and the sin of Sabbath breaking. His mental blindness was evidently shared by his brother ministers, for they assented heartily to his proposition that laws against polygamy, and to close the World's Fair, stand on precisely the same basis. The idea that anything in the Constitution of the United States precludes the passage of Sunday laws, by Congress, was laughed to scorn. “Why,” cried the speakers, “if that be so, then the Constitution has cut its own throat, in the clause ‘Sundays excepted.’” Mr. Putnam, of California, clearly showed the fallacy of this notion in a few simple words. But the same thing has been done multitudes of times and yet the foolishness lives.

The Woman's Club, of Chicago, sent a delegation of three wise and witty women, who, after sitting quietly by and listening attentively to the ministerial talk of the previous session, astonished the assembled Sunday-closing clergymen almost out of their senses, by administering to them such a rebuke as they had never received since they left their mothers' knees. That any one, much less a woman, should presume to so take a clergyman to task, was to them, beyond belief; and still more irritating and horrifying was it, that, coming from a woman, they were obliged to listen, though with a very ill grace. This disinclination to listen to correction was emphasized by some insincere applause and cries of, “Hear! Hear!” This the chairman severely reproved, reminding them that they had been listened to with consideration and that the same consideration was due from them to others,—a courtesy which they had before failed to show.

The Rev. Mr. Cross, a Presbyterian clergyman, from Ohio, struck in so open and manly a way at the deception that has been practiced in repeating petitions that the first two paragraphs of his remarks are quoted here, inasmuch, too, as it is a matter to which the SENTINEL has both frequently and lately referred. Mr. Cross said:—

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the Committee: The real object of my being here to speak a word is in favor of intellectual honesty on the part of the orthodox churches. I am a minister of an orthodox church. I notice in my territory that these church petitions are exceedingly delusive, as to the number of those that sign them or vote for them. Now for example, in one instance in our State the Presbyterians passed a resolution, saying that we represent so many, aggregating a certain membership; and then the Christian Endeavor Society, composed of many of the same church members alluded to by that Presbyterian church, will pass a like resolution, and say we represent fifty, seventy or one hundred members. And then it will be brought before the Sunday-school. And many of the persons who are counted as voting for the resolutions will have been counted three, four or five times; and it is almost on the principle of voting early and often—which is so much opposed in secular politics. I am a witness to this fact. There was one petition claiming to represent eighty church members that signed the petition to Congress, but they were not present at all. It was at a Sunday-school, and the vote was taken by the Sunday-school superintendent, and there were children that voted for these resolutions that were not old enough to know whether the expression, “World's Fair” meant the pretty girls in the next pew or the Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

I deem it my duty to inform this committee of the facts in that case. The real animus of those petitions is religious. But you can not tell by the wording of the petitions just what they mean; it is the spirit back of them that shows this. The columns of the religious press, and the exhortations of class leaders and Sunday-school superintendents—it is what they say to the few that are voting, that tell what these petitions mean. I deem our legislators thoroughly competent, intellectually and morally, to decide this question without any imperious dictation from any sect or group of sects, as to whether this opening of the great educational Exposition is consistent with the civil Sabbath. I notice a tendency in my own church papers and in other orthodox church papers to gloat over the fact that “we”—that is this group of denominations having this common idea,—“have been strong enough by our own strength, to grasp Congress; we have hurled Congress against the Seventh-day Adventists, against the Seventh-day Baptists, and against the Roman Catholic citizens, and against various other of our citizens.”

These things Mr. Cross deprecated, and most properly. Mr. Savage also touched this same point and quoted an epigram to the effect that while it might not always be true that “figures will lie,” yet it was most unfortunately a fact that “liars will figure.” For the application of this he most gracefully apologized, yet found it unavoidably apt.

Unexpectedly to himself, Dr. A. H. Lewis, of the Seventh-day Baptists, was called upon by the chairman to occupy half of the final ten minutes of the day's hearing in opposition to the Sunday closers. By a skillful manner of address, most admirable in its pleasing character, Dr. Lewis succeeded in obtaining attention for the short time given him to the historical and legal grounds against religious legislation in general, and this especial instance in particular.

Mr. James T. Ringgold, of Baltimore, closed the day's session with an earnest legal appeal in which he also found opportunity to express sound reasons against legislation upon religious subjects.

The two facts thus far most fully emphasized by these hearings seem to be, the total displacement of constitutional principle by religious dogma in judicial law, and the extreme intolerance of criticism or opposition by the clergy.

W. H. M.

Washington, D. C.