Newspaper Comment on Sunday Laws by S. B. H.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 7, 1911

Newspaper Comment on Sunday Laws

By S. B. H.

SPEAKING of the Sunday-law modification as proposed in the Connecticut Legislature, the Springfield (Mass.) Weekly Republican of August 10, under the heading “Sunday Laws and Anarchy,” says, among other things: “Changes in the Sunday-observance law of Connecticut are not likely to be made at this session; but for all that, the debate in the State senate on the Sunday amusement question revealed the fact that the question is one in which the public are interested. One senator even declared that he owed his election to the fact that he had pledged himself to favor a more liberal law. The subject seems to gain interest for the moment because of the imprisonment of Upton Sinclair, the author, and several other members of the Single Tax Colony at Arden, Del., for playing tennis and baseball on a recent Sunday.”

The editor referred to Senator Spellacy’s speech, in which the speaker made the statement: “You are making anarchists when you make one class stand idly by and watch the other class go by in their automobiles.” Continuing, the editor goes on to say: “The question of the Sunday law, as thus presented, becomes a class question. Under present conditions, it is maintained, the rich are favored, and the poor suffer from discrimination. And every one realizes that the advent of the automobile, and its wide-spread use on Sunday as a recreation vehicle, has rendered it absurd to deny equivalent privileges to those of less means.” S. B. H.