Untitled article | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · February 16, 1893

Extract from the Speech of Mayor Washburne Before the House Committee.

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee: I was but recently notified that I might be called upon to speak before this committee. The subject is one of such vast interest, touching as it does the welfare of nine-tenths of our population, I do not feel at liberty to decline to speak for want of proper preparation. The issue now raised, in order that it may be intelligently settled, must be clearly drawn and distinctly understood. It is not a question of abstract right or wrong, it is a question touching the absolute right of a vast majority of our entire population, now numbering over sixty millions of people, to enjoy the benefits of this great international Exposition.

It is also a question whether the Government of the United States will keep its faith with the nations of the world of all races and religions, which is contained in the invitation to join with us in this great international Exposition.

The preamble of the act of Congress passed April 25, 1890, creating the World's Columbian Exposition says: “Whereas such an exhibition should be of a national and international character so that not only the people of our Union and this continent, but those of all nations as well can participate, and should therefore have the sanction of the United States, therefore be it enacted, etc.”

When your honorable body used the words, “the people of our Union,” nothing less was meant, nor can these words be made to cover less than the entire people, and if it be our entire people for whom this exhibition has been created you must so legislate as to benefit a majority of those for whom you created this enterprise. You should not now legislate so as to deprive a majority of its benefits. If you legislate in favor of ten millions of those who protest against a Sunday opening, although they may be more numerous in this capital, and their voices may be the loudest in demands, you will not have complied with your obligations and the assurances you have held out, nor met the demands of the less noisy but more numerous fifty millions of people.

Moreover this Exhibition created by Congress is in the act of its creation declared to be of international character “so that not only the people of our Nation and this continent, but those of all nations as well can participate.” This Exhibition is to be the work of all the peoples of every race and creed. The Mohammedan, and Hindoo, the people of China and Japan, all of whom know nothing of our Sabbath, the Jews who observe another day, the peoples of Europe who regard Sunday as a day of recreation, people without creed or religion as well as people of every creed and religion, will participate in this Exposition. To keep our faith with all these people, this Exposition must be managed and conducted in all respects as near as may be upon a common ground upon which all may come together.

It is not Christian nations or people that you have invited but all nations,

and it is because all the nations and peoples of the earth are asked to participate that you have declared that this Fair ought to have the sanction of the United States. I submit that good faith requires that the religious views, whether of a part or the whole of our people, in regard to Sunday observance or otherwise, should not be obtruded into the conduct of this Fair and upon the nations thus invited to participate by any act of our own national Government.

Another branch of this question touches possibly a constitutional principle. If the demand be that which is commonly accepted as the demand, that the World's Columbian Exposition shall be closed upon the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday, in order to testify to the world that this Nation as a Government recognizes the Christian religion as the religion of the land, if this be the ground upon which the closing of this Exposition is demanded, it is not justified by the principles of our Constitution.

The Constitution of the United States framed by those whose wisdom has never yet been questioned, provided in Article 1, that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. The fathers of our Constitution appreciated too well the evils and abuses that might result from permitting the Congress of the United States to legislate at all upon matters of religion, or the observance thereof, or upon any question involving the religious beliefs of our people. They were descendants of a heroic people who had been persecuted and driven from the lands of their birth by such abuses of the functions of government. Our Constitution contemplates that so far as Federal legislation is concerned, religious beliefs and religious observances, as well with respect to days as to doctrines, shall be left untouched. You might as well impose upon the management of this Exposition the condition that a Jew, or a Hindoo, or Buddhist, or heathen, should be barred from its gates, as to say that the day of the week which is regarded as the Sabbath by a few of the people who are asked to participate should be observed. One is no less a violation of the spirit of the prohibition of the Constitution with respect to the powers of Congress than the other. If Congress is prohibited by the Constitution from making any law respecting an establishment of religion, if it could not properly impose conditions as to religious creeds or the observance of religious rites or ceremonies, it is, I submit, equally improper in any law to designate any day, season or time, and to compel its observance in obedience to any religion or creed. This would clearly establish a religion by Federal laws. And when you are asked to compel this Fair to close upon the first day of every week in order to recognize the Christian Sabbath, and in obedience to that religion, you are asked to do that which plainly violates the spirit of the Constitution of the United States. This would then be done in national obedience to, and national observance of, a religion. And if you can not close the Fair on Sunday on this ground, namely, as an act of national obedience to, and observance of, a religion which shall thus be recognized and followed in federal law making,—upon what grounds and for what reasons can you shut its gates in the face of fifty millions of our own people and of participating nations who do not know our Sunday, who now demand that it shall be opened? I am only asking of you that the spirit of our Constitution—that the welfare and wishes of a large majority of our common people—that good faith to the nations of this world, be considered and observed.