Your ShelfYour Projects

The Ministers and the Militia

10%

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 28, 1909

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 86, No. 43.

Read the full edition

The Ministers and the Militia

By W. A. C.

THE following news item from Little Rock, Ark., under date of October 9, clipped from the Denver Sunday News-Times of October 10, reveals not only that who are the real advocates of Sunday enforcement, but what kind of “force” they would use in enforcing Sunday observance upon the people, could they have things their way, and had they the power of the state placed at their disposal for carrying out their wishes:—
“At the request of a committee of ministers, Governor Donaghy to-day addressed a communication to the authorities of Little Rock demanding that the State laws relating to the sabbath observance in Arkansas be enforced, and prohibiting the operation of the State fair to-morrow. The governor was asked to call out the militia to enforce his request, but this he refused to do.”
This reminds us of 1893, when church leaders throughout the country were excited over the opening of the gates of the Columbia Exposition at Chicago on Sunday, and at a mass-meeting held in the First United Presbyterian church of Boston, May 18, the following telegram was ordered sent to President Cleveland:—
“The First United Presbyterian church of Boston, distrusting both directory and commissioners, appeals to you to suppress Chicago nullification with Jacksonian firmness, and to guard the gates next sabbath with troops if necessary.”—Chicago Herald, May 19, 1893.
The Boston Evangelical Alliance, May 15, also sent the following telegram to Hon. Richard D. Olney, Attorney-General of the United States:—
“The presence of the United States troops at Fort Sheridan holds Chicago anarchists in check. Can not the administration notify the directory that those troops will be promptly used, if necessary, to maintain inviolate the national authority, and keep the Fair closed on the Lord’s day?”—Id., May 16.
Another item of the time ran thus:—
“If the proceedings now contemplated shall fail, other resources within the law will be available. The Christian people of this country can fight within the law to have the law observed as well as they can pray.”—Id., May 31.
This is sufficient to show the character of the spirit actuating the movement for the enforcement of the Sunday institution by law, and what may be expected in this country when church and state are united here,—when the ministers can control the militia. We do not need to go back to the Dark Ages to find the spirit of intolerance. W. A. C.