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Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · July 16, 1896

FromAmerican Sentinel, Vol. 11, No. 28

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REPEAL THE SUNDAY LAWS.

Does it seem like a bold presumption to come to the Prohibition Party asking for repeal of the Sunday laws? I know that such proposition hitherto, would be supposed to belong to the friends of the liquor traffic. But I do come in behalf of the Sabbath, in behalf of religious liberty, and in behalf of prohibition, and ask of our party to repeal these laws. I come to Prohibitionists because within their reach is the power to do it, and because the alternative of our great need demands it. Could one go to men who have not faith in divine power to make request for this? They are the ones who, setting aside the divine law, must rely upon the civil law, else they have no law to achieve for them a sabbath. Could one go to the liquor dealers to make request for this? They are the ones whose interests are served by a compulsory holiday. They like to have as much exemption and latitude for themselves as they can gain, but they desire to have the rest of the world corralled for an idle day.
As much as a compulsory holiday caters to the saloons, it nevertheless was not devised by them. Strange as it may seem, the scheme has been developed through the doings of Christian men. Wherever compulsory Sunday laws have been enacted it has been at their instance. The petitions that come to Congress, and to the legislatures, and to our municipalities, for these laws, all emanate from the churches. What is that something in Sunday that thus leads the Christian world upon a way that is fraught with mischief? Can it be that because of having no command of God to make it a sabbath, it must seek the civil law for it or else have no law? The affirmative answer is too obvious to admit denial. Can it be that the disobedience of Christians themselves, in putting aside the Sabbath, placed by God upon the seventh day, and setting up in its stead this Sunday, has constructed for themselves the device of their own mischief? If we in behalf of prohibition, whether Christians or not Christians, shall see that this is where the trouble lies, shall we delay longer to put ourselves where men as Christians ought to stand, and conform to the absolute condition that has been set before us? If we do not see it thus, if there yet remains any doubt, there is an additional complication of Sunday with the saloon business that makes cumulative the evidence, not only of the hindrance to our success, but showing also that our own work respecting this Sunday, is more and more making intrenchment for the saloon in our land.

Prohibition One Day In Seven.

The scheme of prohibition one seventh of the time is not the ideal attainment that Prohibitionists desire. Total prohibition is their aim. Nothing less than that is their intention. But somehow, for some reason, they find themselves diverted to effort for this compromising thing. As much as they desire the other, and as much as they deprecate the exhausting of their energies for this; there nevertheless is an infatuation which holds them to it. This thing that occupies Prohibitionists in part, engrosses almost wholly the efforts of the more indifferent friends of prohibition, yet they exhaust their efforts, and satisfy their conscience by what they do for prohibition on Sunday. The few who would get further find themselves unable to get a following and are stalled.
What is the import of this to the prohibition issue? John B. Finch in his lectures for the party, declared his conviction that it would require much less effort to close the saloons all the time, than to close them on Sunday, when they are given intrenchment on days either side of it. This is a recognition at headquarters, by the former chairman of the National Prohibition Committee, that the compromising scheme to close the saloons one day in seven, involves us in a harder task than to close them all the time. The Union Signal, July 25th, 1889, quoting Mrs. Zadel Barnes Gustafson, said: “High license, local option, and Sunday closing, have never scared the traffic. They have seen in these compromises, their best garrison against the at last thoroughly aroused conscience of the people.”
Both of these utterances are from sources to which none of us will attribute a bias against Sunday. They are views with which a host in the Prohibition ranks will concur. They state what is amply sustained by the condition of things we see about us. It is not an economical expenditure of time and energy, to allow ourselves to be diverted to the harder task, in the compromising scheme of prohibition one seventh of the time, than would avail by uncompromising work to secure entire prohibition. It is not a wise scheme on our part to build by such compromise, the structure wherein, as stated in the Union Signal, the traffic “finds its best garrison.”
There are two things operating more conspicuously than others, to enlist men in the work that brings such unsatisfactory results. The reader has perhaps been impatient to assert one of them before it is stated here. It is that so many are idle on Sunday that the liability to indulge in drink is in excess of any other day. That statement is correct. It is so obvious that a great host feel justified in working for prohibition on that day; even though the citing of that day singly, does express a compromise, and tacit admission for the traffic on the other six days. There are some, seeing the traffic intrenched on days either side of Sunday, and seeing it an idle day, with its susceptibility of being affected by contact with those days, who recognize an impossibility of rescuing Sunday from the scourge of the traffic, by anything short of prohibition for all the days. The facility for procuring supplies on the preceding day, the lawlessness, and the insidious ways of evading the law, and the compulsory holiday, all combine to thwart the expectation that it can avail. But the impracticability of the plan is not so obvious to many, as is the sense of need for prohibition on that day. Hence they are persuaded to occupy their time in that effort. Consider what results from this! The liquor dealers themselves could not devise a way to serve them better after making a compulsory holiday; than next to divert the friends from efforts for entire prohibition, into trying instead to secure it one seventh of the time and to occupy them with that impracticable plan.