p. 5 | A Belated Discovery by L. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Aug 25, 1904

A Belated Discovery

By L. A. S.

Some visitors at the St. Louis exposition are calling attention to the visible result of the policy, adopted at the dictation of Congress, of keeping the gates of the fair closed on Sunday. This was done for the purpose of making at the fair a weekly exhibition of “the American sabbath;” but this exhibition, taken in connection with that made by the city outside the closed gates each Sunday, does not favorably impress many law-abiding, religiously minded people. They see the multitudes on Sunday kept out of the fair, where at least the influences are refining, and turned into the beer-gardens and other resorts of vicious and degrading character, and they can not see that the ostensible purpose of closing the fair, which was to conserve public morality, is being realized.

One of those who believe Sunday closing of the exposition was a great mistake, is the editor of The Outlook, who contrasts the closed fair-grounds and the wide-open city resorts. He says:—

The beer-gardens are all open, and in the neighborhood of the exposition there are two immense beer-gardens, which, combined, can entertain from thirty to forty thousand persons between noon and midnight on Sunday. Right next to the largest and most popular of these gardens there is a race-track, with races on most Sundays during the exposition season; and in the open country about the exposition grounds there are scores of resorts and attractions which would not be tolerated on the “Pike.” . . . In the city itself three or four theaters have two performances a day, and down at the levee there are dozens of excursion boats in waiting for Sunday crowds which seek a cool river breeze, combined with opportunities for gambling with professionals of the lowest and most dangerous type. On Sundays all these places are in full blast, while the beautiful grounds at Forest Park are tightly closed to the public by a high fence. . . . Street-car traffic to the Sunday attractions is as heavy as it is on week-days. It is even heavier, for St. Louis’s working-class population is at liberty on Sunday, and like the visitor from a distance, is drawn to any attraction which is offered.

The Outlook continues:—

We suppose that it is now too late to correct the error; it could be corrected, we judge, only by act of Congress; but that it is an error from every point of view appears to us almost self-evident, and the fact is worth noting now in order that the country may be saved from similar errors in the future. To shut up by law innocent, educative, and helpful places of recreation on Sunday, and leave doubtful, degrading, and vicious ones in full operation, and to do this in the name of religion, is to inflict another of those wounds from which religion has so often suffered at the hands of its friends.

There was a time when such words from The Outlook might have been helpful not only in avoiding the error of turning the Sunday throngs away from a beautiful park and into dens of vice, but the much worse error of Congressional legislation on a religious question. “It is now too late to correct the error,” as The Outlook observes, and what is worse, the evil precedent of Congressional legislation on Sabbath observance is now fully established, and an important bulwark of religious liberty in this republic has been undermined. It will be found impossible to save the country from “similar errors in the future.”

The Chattanooga News takes a view of the matter similar to that of The Outlook, but seems either to have forgotten or to have overlooked the reason of the act of Congress by which the exposition directors were bound to Sunday closing. In the view of the News the closing of the exposition is so obviously in the interests of the surrounding vicious resorts, that it says: “In all probability it was the influence of these Sunday resorts that led Congress to put the closing feature in the bill extending aid to the exposition.”

The News is quite certain that “the churches did not demand the Sunday-closing feature.” If the News will look up the files of the Congressional Record containing this act of Congress, it will see that it was the church influence, and no other, that induced Congress to take such action; that it was an act of legislation dictated by the preponderating religious element in the community, and for purely religious reasons.

So prominent a paper as Collier’s Weekly, from which the News quotes, seems to be still more ignorant regarding the origin and purpose of this Sunday-closing act. It says:—

One of the worst mistakes connected with the very interesting exposition at St. Louis is the Sunday closing. Nobody loses more by it than the champions of real religion, for nothing could do more to cool a people toward religion than an act so out of accord with the feelings of the time. How the error came to be made nobody seems to know. The provision was made a condition of the national government’s contribution, several years ago, but what influence led the government to make the provision we have been unable to learn. It may have been merely the idiosyncrasy of some one Congressman. We have heard, with scepticism, that brewing influences were behind it. Certainly the brewers, the St. Louis restaurants, and the keepers of billiard halls are the only gainers, and especially the brewers, for the crowds which would have been having refining pleasure at the exposition grounds now have a somewhat less refining pleasure drinking beer by thousands in the resorts with which St. Louis is surrounded. It would be a good thing if the forces which caused this mistake at Washington could be uncovered.

It would be a much better thing if the people of the country could be awake to the situation, and watchful of the forces of the enemy when they are uncovered and laying siege to the national legislature. There was nothing secret about the influence to which Congress yielded in this matter of closing the St. Louis fair. It was, as stated, the church influence, brought to bear on Congress through a “Christian” lobby maintained here at Washington by the Rev. W. F. Crafts. Mr. Crafts has made himself felt and feared in Congress because of the political influence he is able to exert through the co-operation of the churches, the W. C. T. U., and other religious organizations. He finds also allies in Congress, such as Senators Platt and Hawley, of Connecticut, Gallinger, of New Hampshire, and the late Senator Quay, of Pennsylvania. Through the influence of some of these Congressmen, Mr. Crafts is enabled to send his literature broadcast over the country free of cost.

The leading Methodist organ in this country, the New York Christian Advocate, vigorously dissents from the view that Sunday closing is a mistake, and says: “The Outlook has missed the whole point. It is the management, under its contract with Congress, that shuts up by law the grounds on Sunday, ostensibly to conserve the regard for Sunday and existing Sunday laws in the whole United States of America, without regard to local conditions, and it is the city of St. Louis that leaves doubtful, degrading, and positively vicious recreations in full operation.”

What business has Congress to legislate for the purpose of conserving the regard for Sunday? Suppose that Sunday is not the Christian sabbath; suppose that the Sabbath is the seventh day of the week, and not the first. That is what the fourth commandment says, and what many Christian people teach and practise, so it is fair to make the supposition. If that supposition be true, Congress is legislating against the Christian sabbath. The Christian people of this land would not wish that; nor would Congress have any right to legislate in that way. The religious majority say this supposition is not true; but without insisting that it is true, the fact remains that it is a purely religious question; and what right has Congress to legislate on religion or to decide religious controversies? That is the very thing the Constitution prohibits it from doing.

We are not arguing about the proper way of observing the Sabbath. We do not think the Sabbath day should be spent at an exposition, however free it may be from debasing influences. The Sabbath is a religious day, and should

be religiously observed. But in such a matter each individual must be guided by the instruction of Him who made the Sabbath. The wrong comes in when one individual attempts to become conscience for another, and when one class of the people attempts to force the rest to a certain standard of Sabbath observance, or to any standard, and compel them to act without conscience. That only results in forcing those who are without conscience in the matter to do worse than they would do if they were not subjected to legal compulsion; just as it is worse for the Sunday throngs to go to the beer-gardens and the dives than it would be for them to see the exposition. And when this is done to conserve public morality, and in the name of Christianity, it is a foolish and wicked mistake. All religious legislation is of this character; for force has no rightful place in the domain of religion.

The “Christian” lobby at Washington is a distinctly religious institution, maintained by purely religious forces. Mr. Crafts, its head, is a religious man, who advocates Sunday rest from a religious standpoint, and believes Sunday labor to be immoral and an offense to God. He would have no use for the day as one of rest if it were not for his religious views, and it is solely on this basis that he asks legislation of Congress. Congress has several times yielded to this religious influence, and it is high time indeed that some steps were taken, if indeed any now can be, to prevent the further progress of religious legislation. Unquestionably it will go further if the friends of religious freedom do not strongly rally to its support. L. A. S.