How Sunday Legislation Is Secured in Congress by W. A. Colcord

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 30, 1906

How Sunday Legislation Is Secured in Congress

By W. A. Colcord

THE following from the May, 1902, number of The Sabbath, the official organ of the American Sabbath Union, shows how the Sunday-closing provision to the five-million-dollar appropriation made by Congress to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, commonly called the St. Louis Exposition, was secured:—

“The latter part of February, 1900, Dr. Wilbur Crafts of the Reform Bureau, Washington, D. C., sent a telegram to the general secretary [of the American Sabbath Union, Dr. I. W. Hathaway], calling him to Washington to aid in securing an amendment of the bill appropriating five million dollars to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition.

“February 22 this bill passed the House of Representatives without any Sunday condition. When it came to the Senate, Senator Teller consented to move the following amendment:—

“As a condition precedent to the payment of this appropriation, the directors shall contract to close the gates to visitors on Sundays during the whole duration of the fair.”

“We were assured by several senators that it was useless, and that such amendment would not pass, but after several days of unceasing effort on the part of Drs. Crafts and Hathaway, this bill, with this amendment, was passed by the Senate.”

And the following from the August, 1906, number of the Christian Statesman, shows how the Sunday-closing provision to the two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar appropriation just made by Congress to the Jamestown Exposition, to be held next year, was likewise secured:—

“On Monday, June 25, there was held in Philadelphia a meeting of the Philadelphia Sabbath Association. At this meeting it was strongly urged that Dr. T. T. Mutchler, the corresponding secretary of the Association and of the Pennsylvania Sabbath Association, shall visit Washington again to make sure that there should be no failure at the last moment of the assurances already given that the appropriation in favor of the Jamestown Exposition should be conditioned on the closing of the grounds on the Lord’s day. Dr. Mutchler reached Washington early on the following day, and found to his astonishment that the bill had already passed the second reading in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, an identical bill having been introduced in each house, and that it contained no such provision as he had been assured on a former visit it would contain. Not more than three full days of the session remained. Only the most resolute and strenuous endeavors could secure the desired action at so late a day. With the help of some good men in each house, the necessary provision was at the last moment embodied in the bill, and passed both the Senate and the House of Representatives unanimously. It read as follows: ‘Provided, That as a condition precedent to the payment of this appropriation in aid of said exposition, the Jamestown Exposition Company shall agree to close the grounds of said exposition to visitors on Sunday during the period of said exposition.’”

“Thus we have another impressive example of the necessity for unrelaxing vigilance and persistence in the effort to secure even the most righteous legislation at the hands of our lawmakers. We have a lesson, too, as to the value of organization of the friends of the right. Dr. Mutchler’s most effective argument in all his interviews was the fact that so many States have now Sabbath Reform Societies within their bounds, that more than half the counties of Pennsylvania are organized as auxiliary to the State Association, and that the good will of the great body of citizens represented on these organizations is indispensable to the success of any such expositions. This, he claimed, had been demonstrated in the contrasting experience of the Chicago and Buffalo Expositions on the one hand, and those in Philadelphia and St. Louis on the other.”

The real nature and purpose of all Sunday legislation is shown by the fact that it is always a religious organization that stands back of such legislation and demands its passage. It is the “American Sabbath Union,” or the “Philadelphia Sabbath Association,” or the “Lord’s Day Alliance,” or the “Ministers’ Union,” or some other preachers’ association that starts the agitation and follows up the demand for such laws. They never come from secular sources as do other laws. The foregoing instances are striking proofs of the truthfulness of this.

The “most effective argument” of Dr. Mutchler, referred to by the Statesman, by which he persuaded members of Congress to favor or consent to this unconstitutional legislation, recalls the following prediction from the Testimonies, published as long ago as 1885: “To secure popularity and patronage, legislators will yield to the demand for a Sunday law.”—“Testimonies for the Church,” No. 32, page 207; Vol. V, page 451.

The yielding, it seems, has already begun.

The Sabbath Reform Societies now organized in various States, are beginning to bear fruit in both State and national legislation.

The Report on Sunday Mails adopted by the United States Senate in 1829, well said: “All religious despotism commences by combination and influence; and when that influence begins to operate upon the political institutions of the country, the civil power soon bends under it, and the catastrophe of other nations furnishes an awful warning of the consequences.”

W. A. COLCORD.