Religious Intolerance in Eastern Pennsylvania by George W. Spies

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 26, 1906

Religious Intolerance in Eastern Pennsylvania

By George W. Spies

PENNSYLVANIA is, without doubt, taking the lead in the unconstitutional and unchristian practise of enforcing religious observances upon its citizens by law. This is admitted by the American Sabbath Association, and proved by the statistics of arrest in our conference during the past year.

Since the organization of the Religious Liberty Department in our conference one year ago, no less than one thousand persons have been arrested in eastern Pennsylvania for non-observance of Sunday, three of this number being Seventh-day Adventists. During the same time, fines amounting to tens of thousands of dollars have been imposed upon the victims of these unjust laws, a probable aggregate of forty or fifty thousand dollars having been thus collected.

Thirteen of the thirty-six counties in the conference were more or less active during the past year in the crusade against the natural rights of man. Two hundred and sixty-seven arrests, the largest number reported from any one county, were made in Lackawanna County, two hundred and twenty-nine of them in a single month. Schuylkill County reported two hundred and fifty-one. Northumberland County stands third in the list, with one hundred and forty-six arrests, all but one of which were made early in January, 1906. Philadelphia stands fourth, with one hundred

and fourteen reported arrests, all but two having been made in the month of April, 1906, at which time, at the request of the preachers of Philadelphia, one million three hundred thousand American citizens were deprived of the liberty granted them by the Constitution, by a Sunday closing order issued by Mayor Weaver, which made honest toil a crime. Six cities in the conference had such orders issued during the closing months of the last year. The remaining nine counties reporting arrests have all had fifty or less.

Thus the State in which the Declaration of Independence was drawn up, and in which the Constitution, after months of fierce fighting, was adopted, has gone back on right principles. The historic metropolis that gave birth, in a manner, to the liberties of our nation, is now in the hands of religious zealots, who call it the “Nation’s Training-school of National Reform.” Truly in the State of Pennsylvania has the sun of liberty both risen and set. GEORGE W. SPIES.