Sunday-Law Agitation in South Carolina by William Henry Branson

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 8, 1912

Sunday-Law Agitation in South Carolina

By William Henry Branson

A BILL was introduced recently in the House of Representatives of the State of South Carolina now in session, providing for an amendment of the present Sunday law, increasing the penalty for Sunday labor to a fine not to exceed one hundred dollars or imprisonment not to exceed thirty days. Under the present law the highest fine that can be imposed for a single offense is one dollar.

The bill was presented before the House by a Mr. Osborne, of Spartanburg. Petitions have been printed against the passage of the bill, and are now being circulated.

Judging from an article published in one of the Spartanburg papers by a friend of the bill, it is not difficult to see at whom the bill is aimed. The article begins as follows: “Seventh-day Adventists, who have obtained much free advertising for their faith in Spartanburg County by being prosecuted for working on Sunday, may not find conviction on such a charge so trivial a matter if a bill introduced in the legislature by Representative H. K. Osborne, of this county, becomes a law.”

The bill has been favorably reported by the judiciary committee of the House. Plans have been laid to supply all the legislators with literature on the principles of religious liberty, and to send memorials from our leading churches against the bill. If it passes the House, we are promised a hearing before the judiciary committee of the Senate, where it must next be considered.

W. H. BRANSON.