Note and Comment

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 31, 1907

THERE is an organization in this country known as the Woman’s National Sabbath Alliance, which is circulating petitions among the people in the interests of a better observance of Sunday. The signers pledge themselves “to discourage, as far as possible, such employments on the Lord’s day as would prevent ourselves, our servants, or others for whom we are responsible,” from having an opportunity for rest and worship. This way of protecting the supposed sacredness of the day is much better than attempting by law to enforce its observance upon those who see no divine obligation in it; and yet it seems peculiar, to say the least, for Christians to pledge themselves to do something Christ never did and never instructed them to do.

THAT Sunday laws are not “mere matters of police regulation” frequently crops out in spite of the protestations of the advocates of such laws that that is all they are. The commissioners of the District of Columbia have been stirred up to regulate more strictly the playhouses of Washington which keep open on that day. At the present time the only regulation governing the character of Sunday theatricals is that they must be decent. The corporation counsel was asked for an opinion as to whether the commissioners had authority to adopt regulations governing the character of Sunday concerts. The counsel, Mr. Thomas, in his opinion, said:—

An infraction of public decency is the same, whether the occurrence happens on a secular day or Sunday, and if the object be the protection of Sunday alone, in my opinion the joint resolution which gives the commissioners power to regulate public decency is not broad enough to afford a full remedy.

But it is not the matter of the “decency” of the shows that is under consideration; for they have the power to regulate that matter already. No arrests are made upon that charge, and no complaints are made that “public decency” is being violated. The object is “the protection of Sunday alone,” as the corporation counsel intimates in the above quotation. He further states that in his opinion the commissioners have power to pass a regulation along the line indicated, whose violation would mean the revoking of the license of the playhouse in which the violation occurred. The purpose of these regulations—as of all Sunday laws—will be to protect and enforce a religious institution rather than to protect the public from indecent shows. If it were “a mere matter of police regulation,” as so frequently asserted, the commissioners would need no regulations concerning Sunday shows other than those already in force.