p. 13 | Threatened With Loss of Constituency

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 2, 1910

Threatened With Loss of Constituency

LAST month the McGrath bill, legalizing Sunday baseball, caused much discussion in the New York Legislature, and passed the Assembly by a margin of one vote. One speaker, Assemblyman Perkins, led the opposition, declaring the bill artfully designed, and an entering wedge to destroy the sanctity of the American sabbath. Trembling with excitement, he pointed his finger at the Speaker, and said: “I fear you will regret, personally and politically, the step you are taking. I fear you will hear from your constituents.” The Speaker, Mr. Wadsworth, surrendering the chair, made a lengthy speech in favor of the bill, and in answer to the remarks of Mr. Perkins. Among other things, he said, in reply to the charge that he would be called to account by his constituency:—

I am no coward in the matter of my constituency. If they do not like my vote on this question, they may not send me back, nor may they elevate me to any other office; but that does not cause me to shrink from my duty as regards this bill. I believe that the old days of Puritan laws have passed away. I believe that the Sundays when we drew down our blinds, and darkened our houses, and sat in sackcloth and ashes, thank God, have gone.

I do not believe that we emerged from those darkened rooms where we conned over our Bibles any better or purer men on Monday because of the fact that we sat in solitude on Sunday. I do not believe that the man who hid himself away from his fellow men on Sunday was any better than the man who walked out for healthful, honest, and decent recreation on Sunday.

I am a churchgoer, and I am a church contributor. I am a believer and a firm believer in God, and I believe in a definite religion; but I should not permit my minister or my priest to do my thinking for me, and to write a letter to this legislature, and tell me about Sunday baseball. I do not think he knows anything about it. I think he is as little qualified to tell me about Sunday baseball as I am to tell him about his theology.

While we might not be able to agree with all the positions taken by the Speaker of the New York Assembly, as reported in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, it is refreshing at least to see legislators hold the courage of their convictions, and vote their honest sentiments upon measures of public interest, without fear of being called to account, or losing their political office. It is such men as these in legislative halls who hold in check many evil measures. It is men who place truth and their own convictions of duty before the loss of political patronage, who are stemming some of the great currents of evil which are seeking to overwhelm the world. May God lead the honest-hearted into the fulness of light and truth.