Review of Sunday Law Enforcement in Tennessee
By J. S. WASHBURN
In no other State of the Union have there been so many Sabbath-keepers fined and imprisoned in the past as in the State of Tennessee. For several years there has been a lull in this work, but there are evidences that that work is to be revived. September 4, George B. Thomson and D. A. Deedon, of Manchester, Tenn., were tried for Sunday labor, and fined five dollars and costs, amounting, in all, to $47.80. The brethren did not feel that they could conscientiously pay the fines and costs imposed. They were therefore sentenced to work these out in the workhouse (the county jail), at the rate of forty cents a day. The work for which they were indicted was that of stretching a wire fence to keep the cattle out of their corn. The work was done on Easter Sunday, in the early part of the season, and the fence they were putting up was along a road which was two miles from the town of Manchester, and practically in the woods. They had no thought of being prosecuted for the work they were doing. They had been very careful not to do any work on Sunday that would unnecessarily give offense. They were held in high esteem as excellent citizens in the community by all the people who knew them. The two families of which these brethren are the heads, are the only Sabbath-keepers in that vicinity; and by a strange combination of unfortunate circumstances none of our workers knew anything of the trial until after one of them, Brother Thomson, had been in prison for several days. After hearing of their arrest and imprisonment, in company with Brother Thomson's son, who is one of the nurses at the Nashville Sanitarium, I went to Manchester, and began to circulate a petition to the governor, asking him to remit this sentence. A few years ago Governor Turney pardoned a number of our brethren in the same situation. They had been arrested, and must either pay the fines and costs, or go to jail. We therefore desired to take this matter before Governor Patterson, and state to him the situation, and get him to pardon them, if he thought best to do so. We called on the judge of the circuit court, and had a very pleasant talk with him. He seemed to regret very much the situation, and said he had the highest regard for these two men as citizens, but that it was his duty to enforce the law; and yet he felt very sorry that they would go to jail rather than pay the fine. He wrote to them that if they would pay twenty-five dollars, he would remit all the rest of the fine and costs. He was very much distressed when they would go to jail rather than accept what he thought a very generous offer. He felt, however, that it was not best for him to sign the petition for their pardon. The prosecuting attorney took the same position. We found that he had really pressed this case, and in the trial used the usual arguments for Sunday enforcement. He asked the people of the State of Tennessee if these few Adventists could overthrow their sabbath. “The Scripture,” he said, tells us “not to forsake the assembling of yourselves together the first day of the week.” He was highly indignant when Brother Thomson said that there was no such text in the Bible, and correctly read Heb. 10:25. The sheriff who arrested the brethren spoke highly of them, but held that the law must be enforced, and said that if the brethren did not pay their fines, they would have to go to jail, but that he was very sorry to have these men in jail. He said he had been sheriff for a year, and deputy sheriff for some years before that, but that this was the first case of arrest for Sunday work he had ever known in that community. He said that many of the people do as much work on Sunday as these brethren. I asked him if it were not plain from his own words that these men were in reality arrested because they kept the seventh-day Sabbath. He, however, was not inclined to look at it in this way. The mayor signed the petition, but stated that these men must not break the law again. The leading men of the town also signed it; but the editor of the leading paper of the place declined to publish anything in defense of these men. He, with many others, insisted that they should respect the law, whether the law were right or not. We held a meeting in the public square, and talked on liberty from the standpoint of the Bible, the Constitution, and the views of the leading men of the United States. Almost all the people seemed to be in favor of the principles of religious liberty, yet there was a strong undercurrent of bigotry, which showed how some would deal with us had they the power. The judge had arranged that as both these brethren worked the same farm, one could go to jail first, while the other did the work at home. Brother Thomson went to jail first, and Brother Deedon was left to do the work without even being under bonds, so absolutely did the authorities trust this “dangerous criminal.” We visited Brother Thomson in jail, and found him cheerful, even though the jail had been condemned as unsanitary. The keeper of the jail was very kind to Brother Thomson, and after the first few days he was given the liberty of the corridor, and sometimes even the jail door was left open. Brother Thomson was sick the first few days of his imprisonment, from the odors that permeated his cell. The air was poisonous. Only one window admitted the light and air, and it was more than half iron bars. After brief visits, I was not sorry to get out in the fresh, open air, and I could not help thinking that it would be very hard, indeed, to stay there for over two months. It seemed out of place to see this honest Christian brother, who is really a self-supporting missionary worker, confined where one would expect to see only criminals, and later probably out on the chain-gang. We secured the names of nearly all the leading citizens of Manchester, and on the twenty-fifth of September Brother C. P. Bollman and I visited ex-Governor20Porter, who is very friendly to our people, and once acted as counsel for some of our brethren who had been arrested for Sunday labor. He gave us a very kind personal letter to Governor Patterson. We had no difficulty in securing an audience with the governor, and presented our petition to him for the release of these two brethren from the payment of their fines and costs. He said that if the brethren did not pay the costs, he could not do anything for them, but that if they would pay these, he could release them. He said he had no authority to release them from the payment of the costs. Nearly every public man in Tennessee knows that a few years ago the governor pardoned some of our brethren who had been imprisoned for Sunday work. The latest news in regard to this matter is that the judge, stirred up by the circulation of the petition and the agitation of many of the people over the imprisonment of these honest men, levied on Brethren Thomson and Deedon to secure the payment of the fine and costs, by a sheriff's sale of their goods. This sale has been planned, and a day set for it. Brother Thomson has been in jail now twenty days. Surely this ought to awaken us to start such a religious liberty campaign in Tennessee as has never yet been attempted. We believe there are many honest men and women of the very best class, who, when they understand the situation, will stand firm for liberty. May this arouse our people as they have never been aroused before. We ask the prayers and assistance of our brethren everywhere that we may be able to place before the prominent men of Tennessee the situation as it really is. The ex-governor, on whom we called, related an incident in regard to our people at a camp-meeting held at Paris, Tenn. He said that an ax of his which had been borrowed by some of the brethren was returned with a new handle in it. It was the first instance in all his life, he said, that he had known of anything being returned better than it was before it was borrowed, and he felt that our people must be an excellent people. Truly we are a spectacle unto men and unto angels. May God arouse his people to-day to the great work that is to be done.