DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUNDAY BILLS.
Mr. K. C. RUSSELL, chairman of the Religious Liberty Bureau, Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C., has issued an important circular, from which we take the following: It will be remembered that last spring it was feared that Congress would pass a Sunday bill for the District of Columbia. On April 6 a bill did pass the House of Representatives, and it is now pending the third reading in the Senate. This could very quickly be passed, when it comes to the final issue, unless most earnest efforts are put forth in remonstrating against it at once. We shall do all we can to have the final action deferred until after we are granted a hearing. The Sunday measure now pending before the Senate is entitled, “An Act Requiring Certain Places of Business in the District of Columbia to be Closed on Sunday.” This bill is doubtless introduced as a feeler or a forerunner to another that has been introduced in the House, the title of which is, “A Bill to Further Protect the First Day of the Week as a Day of Rest in the District of Columbia.” This last is a very much more stringent measure than the former. The text of both of these will be found in the Review for December 15. It will appear evident to all that these are very dangerous measures, and that, should they become law, they would give great prestige and influence for similar legislation throughout the whole country. In fact, that is the object of the manager of the International Reform Bureau, for he desires this as a first step, and then, after the states are marshaled into line, he desires to bring their combined influence to bear upon the Congress of the United States for a national Sunday law. Persons who desire to petition Congress against these dangerous measures can procure blanks from the Bureau, at the above address. It is a matter that concerns every one, for all such legislation is a menace to religious liberty, and the best time to combat it is before it finds a place upon the national statute books. “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”