Untitled article

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York City · June 11, 1896

Of the same decision referred to in the preceding note, a weekly paper, published in this city, says:—

There is one sentence in the opinion delivered by the California judges which should be conspicuously engraved where all the labor agitators, the legislators who pass labor laws, and the courts that affirm their constitutionality can see it daily. It is this:

“It is a curious law for the protection of labor which punishes the laborer for working.”

It is a peculiarity of meddlesome laws like those passed in the interest of Sunday observance that they are never what they profess to be. This law could not possibly protect any laborer in his right to rest on Sunday, because his right to such rest never has been infringed, and, in the absence of chattel slavery, cannot be. No employer can force any of his employés to work on Sunday. The law could be used only by those who desired to be idle on Sunday to oppress those who wanted to work; and the same is true with regard to the Sunday law of New York and other States.