The Idaho Sunday Law by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Feb 16, 1911

The Idaho Sunday Law

By C. M. S.

THE governor of Idaho, in his message to the legislature, dated January 3, strongly recommends the repeal of the State Sunday law. This is the Sunday law which was drawn up by the Pacific Coast representative of the International Reform Bureau, Rev. G. L. Tufts, and was declared to be the product of a study of forty other State Sunday laws, and was highly recommended by the International Reform Bureau as a model law. Nevertheless the governor declared that “the provisions of the act itself are in many respects both absurd and contradictory,” and that “the matter has twice been before the supreme court, requiring construction at the hands of that tribunal, while many other of its provisions still remain in grave doubt. . . . The reason for many of the prohibitions are simply incomprehensible to the average mind. . . . No law universal in its application can be enacted that will be satisfactory to the varying conditions of this State. As a result of its experience in construing this law, the supreme court has proposed in its report to the governor, that it be so amended as to be made intelligible. Undoubtedly the act needs amendment if it is continued in force, but I would suggest as a still better remedy that the entire act be repealed, and the subject-matter of it relegated to local authorities in the various municipalities of the State.” This double criticism from the governor and the State supreme court is a strikingly severe comment on the work and the judgment of those who are responsible for the making of the law. It is to be hoped that the governor’s recommendation for the repeal of the law may meet the approval of the Idaho Legislature. C. M. S.