p. 1 | CLOSING THE GATES

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 27, 1876

CLOSING THE GATES.

Decision of the Subject of Closing the Exhibition on Sundays.

Long and Animated Debate in the Commission—Speeches of Messrs. Hawley, Loring, and Donaldson—the Gates Closed by a Vote of 29 to 10—Exhibition Notes.

The United States Centennial Commission met at 11 o’clock on Friday morning at Judges’ Pavilion, Centennial grounds, Gen. Joseph R. Hawley, President, in the chair.

The roll was called, the following gentlemen answering to their names:— Messrs. Nelson, Ala.; McCormick, Ariz.; Lawrence, Dodge, Ark.; Creigh, Cal.; Paul, Col.; Hawley, Conn.; Burbank, Dak.; Dexter, D. C.; Osborn, Bernard, Fla.; Peters, Ga.; Donaldson, Idaho; Matthews, Ill.; Campbell, Ind.; Lowry, Iowa; Crawford, Kan.; Lynch, La.; Nye, Me.; Latrobe, Md.; Loring, Mass.; Collins, Grant, Mich.; Folwell, Minn.; French, Miss.; McNeil, Mo.; Moody, Neb.; Haines, Nev.; Straw, N. H.; Beckwith, Kimball, N. Y.; Goshorn, Griffith, O.; Durfur, Or.; Corliss, R. I.; Gurney, S. C.; Parsons, Texas; Haydon, Utah; Chase, Vt.; Evans, Abernethy, W. Ter.; Boteler, W. V.; Atwood, Wis.; Carey, Wy.

A large number of visitors were present, conspicuous among whom were members of the Committee of Thirteen, and representatives of various religious organizations, some of whom were busying themselves in the distribution of tracts on the necessity of keeping the Sabbath inviolate among the members of the Commission.

Mr. Nye, of Maine, presented a petition from the Maryland State Temperance Alliance, asking the Commission to adhere to their resolution to keep the grounds closed on Sunday; also a remonstrance from the Temperance League against the sale of liquor upon the grounds. Received and filed.

THE SUNDAY OPENING.

Mr. Donaldson, of Idaho, introduced a resolution providing for the opening of the exhibition every day in the week, and providing that no steam be used on Sunday, and that no exhibitor be compelled to be in attendance on that day.

Mr. Loring, of Massachusetts, moved, as a substitute for this resolution the following, in substance similar to that introduced by Mr. Latrobe, of Maryland, on Thursday:—

“The United States Centennial Commission have heard with great respect the statements that have been made to it on the part of those who desire the opening of the grounds and buildings of the Exposition under their charge on Sunday, and fully appreciate the sincerity and earnestness with which they have been pressed upon the Commission. Nor have they been unmindful of the memorials to the same effect that are now upon the table. Nevertheless, the Commission are of opinion that their action heretofore in this connection, on the strength of which they do not doubt that many have been induced to contribute their means and the products of their skill and industry to make the Exposition what it is, ought to be regarded as a pledge to the public, which, in good faith, they are bound to keep; and so believing, the Commission must respectfully decline to make any change in the rule that closes the grounds and buildings upon Sunday.”

Mr. Donaldson submitted that his resolution was much shorter and to the point, and contained, besides, definite provisions for the regulation of machinery and the attendance of exhibitors on Sundays, and insisted that the Commission first proceed to vote on his resolution.

The Chair ruled that Mr. Loring’s substitute was first in order.

On motion, the speeches were limited to ten minutes on the side.

Mr. Loring, of Massachusetts, then took the floor with a strong speech, in advocacy of keeping the grounds closed on Sundays. He said he did not think there was any necessity for the opening of the Exhibition on Sundays. The views of the people, as manifested in the great amount of discussion on this subject, were strongly in favor of keeping the gates closed on Sundays. This demand was the most natural and strongest ever made by the American people since the Declaration of Independence. The Sabbath sentiment was one of the strongest in the American character, and the representatives of all other nations, when they became inhabitants of this country, always became naturalized first by the adoption of our language and our customs. He acknowledged there were a few who were inclined to more liberal views, but they were running counter to the ways of our forefathers planted firmly in American soil, transmitted from generation to generation, and adopted by the strangers who came to share with us the blessings of American citizenship.

It was a bad policy, in an economical point of view, to open the grounds on Sunday. It would send a shock through the whole country that would deter millions of Sabbath-loving people from coming at all to the Exhibition. Mr. Loring was willing to admit that the Exhibition was a powerful educator, both in a moral and an intellectual sense, but was unwilling to have its influence set side by side with the churches. As for the operative classes, he thought their employers ought to have the liberality to send them free of cost and free of deduction of wages, instead of compelling them to work all the week, leaving them Sunday alone for a visit to the Exhibition.

Mr. Donaldson—Yes; but they don’t do it.

Mr. Loring affirmed that in his State it was the common custom for employers to treat their workmen to excursions to the State exhibitions.

FROM THE SUBLIME TO THE RIDICULOUS.

The speaker concluded by stating that he was the president of one of the leading agricultural societies in Massachusetts.

Mr. Donaldson—Horse trots?

Mr. Loring—Yes, horse trots; and suppose that Thursday, and Friday, and Saturday were racing days, and he should take that excuse to open the horse trot on Sunday, what would the boys of Massachusetts do?

Mr. Donaldson—Guess they would all go.

Mr. Loring—Yes; they would go and tear down the fences and annihilate the disgraceful show.

THE OTHER SIDE.

Mr. Nelson, of Alabama, then rose for the side in favor of opening the grounds.

Mr. Nelson showed, from ancient history, that after all Sunday, about which there was so much contention among Christians, was not a Christian institution at all, but had come to us from the heathen Egyptians.

Mr. Loring—It’s a good thing to keep up, anyhow.

Mr. Nelson said there was a great amount of contention among professed Christians even on this day. The orthodox mediocrity usually took the ground that anything like the liberal acceptance of the day was a violation of the Christian Sunday. There were some men who read the Bible every day, but who did nothing else but read the Bible on Sundays. There were others, generally the leading religious minds of our age, who like David, Elijah, Jesus Christ, and Martin Luther, ate good food, put on their best raiment, took down their harps, and were rejoiceful on that day. He contrasted this with the helpless narrow-mindedness of those who thought sitting astride of a fence, or kissing your wife on Sunday was Sunday-breaking.

Mr. Donaldson—That was the law in New England. (Laughter.)

Mr. Nelson—Great men of modern times have had grave doubts as to whether the New England acceptance of Sunday is the most correct, and, indeed, many consider it directly anti-Christian and anti-scriptural.

Mr. Nelson was followed by Mr. McNeil, of Missouri. Mr. McNeil said that the battle against the restrictive laws had been the great legislative race of the country ever since the Declaration of Independence. From point to point these old blue laws had been fought. The conveniences of the people must be subserved. Progress must have its right of way.

Mr. Loring—Will the gentleman tell us what laws of Massachusetts it has been necessary to repeal in order to advance civilization.

Mr. McNeil—Why, bless your soul, all your early laws. One, for instance, that a man could not travel more than ten miles on a Sunday. (Laughter.)

Mr. McNeil concluded with the following eloquent words: I would like to have seen this Commission, of which I felt a glowing pride to have received my certificate of membership—do something—take one step in favor of the religious liberty which is vouchsafed to America by her Constitution. Nothing would have been more sensible, nothing more patriotic, nothing more Christian. I do yet entertain a faint hope that my brothers, when they cast their votes on this most solemnly important measure, will bear in mind that the Sabbath is made for man and not man for the Sabbath, and Him who made this divine utterance.

GOING BACK ON HIS OWN.

Mr. Morell, of Pennsylvania, arose in advocacy of closing the Exhibition. He said he would not touch the moral or religious aspect of the question. He thought it unjust to exhibitors and stockholders to open the Exhibition on Sunday, because the general understanding was that the fair should be closed on Sundays.

[We do not see how Mr. Morell can maintain this position in the face of the petition of 540 stockholders to open the Exhibition.—Editor of the Item.]

Mr. Morell concluded—The members of the Commission who are in favor of closing upon Sunday would leave for home if the ground were opened.

USING FALSE ARGUMENTS.

Mr. Loring again secured the floor, and, speaking of running horse cars on Sunday, said it was quite different from other days of the week—it has been reduced down to the minimum of absolute public necessity.

Mr. McCormick, of Arizona, read the following extract from the proceedings of the Commission, published by authority of Congress, in 1874: “During this period (from May 10, to Nov. 10, 1876) the Exhibition shall be open to the public daily, except on Sundays, between the hours of 9 A. M. and 6 P. M.”

Mr. Latrobe, of Maryland, thought it was nothing more than common honesty toward exhibitors and stockholders to carry out this provision.

Mr. Nelson—This was not an agreement between the Centennial authorities and exhibitors and stockholders. It is not on the bonds.

OLD WOMEN WITH BROOMSTICKS.

Mr. Boteler, of Virginia, said that in the first meetings of the Commission in 1870 this question was settled, and has always been so considered by them. If he voted to open upon Sunday there is not an old woman in his place but would hunt him down and drive him out with a broomstick. (Laughter.)

Mr. Donaldson—You say it was nominated in the bond that the Exhibition should be closed on Sunday. I say it was not, and I will prove it. Mr. Donaldson then, referring to the regulation read by Mr. McCormick containing the words, “Except on Sundays,” read the following proviso to the same, omitted by Mr. McCormick: “The Centennial Commission reserves the right to explain or amend these regulations whenever it may be deemed necessary for the interest of the Exhibition.” (Immense applause from the members and bystanders.)

REPARTEES.

Mr. Nelson—They are afraid to let it go to the Board of Finance.

Mr. Boteler—We are not afraid to take the responsibility of deciding the question.

A PLAIN TRUTH.

Mr. Nelson then took the floor for the second time. He claimed that his opponents were a set of politicians who had ingratiated themselves into the good favors of certain religious communities, and dared not vote according to their better judgment. He expressed his astonishment that Mr. Loring should so stultify himself as to compare this vast university—the Exhibition—with all its elevating and educating influences, to a horse race.

Mr. Kimball, of New York, said he was not a politician, and, consequently, he had nothing to fear from his constituency. He was in favor of closing.

AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT.

He thought if the matter were put to a vote in New York, there would be a tremendous majority for opening. Yet he

dared to stick to the side he thought the right one. He didn’t want the question sent over to the Board of Finance. He wanted it settled by the Commission, and if it was not settled in the right way tomorrow, 3,000 newspapers and 20,000 pulpits would cry out against the Commission and its members, in tones of indignation and denunciation.

A CRY OF “COWARD.”

Mr. Nelson—I told you you were afraid to face the question.

“THE MOST UNKINDEST CUT OF ALL.”

Mr. Kimball, excitedly—I allow no man to impugn my courage, either publicly or privately. I fought against the rebels in the late war, and if the South rebels again, I shall do the same as I did before.

Gen. Hawley then made a speech, Mr. Morell in the chair. He said it was the law of God to rest one day in seven. Besides, it was a natural law, and applicable to the physical constitutions of both man and beast, and, as some claimed, also to machinery. It was not for him to demand that any one should violate his conscience on his account, and it was far from him to impose anything of the kind on his fellow-man. But when the Exhibition was opened on Sunday the consciences of millions of citizens of this country were violated. The Commission had no right to touch this venerable American custom. Touch the American’s customs and you touch his feelings in the tenderest spot. Politicians know that. If any one takes away from a people a venerated moral principle, without giving them something better in return, he commits an act as dastardly and inhuman as can be thought of.

This is what was proposed to be done. This was a most important vote; one of the most important ever cast since the Declaration of Independence. If it went the right way, it would form a bulwark to religion and morality for centuries to come; if the wrong way, it would give an upstart to liberalism that would send a mighty billow of irreligion over the continent that might not end in anything short of atheism, and the dissolution of our cherished Christian government. He was not afraid of man in anything, but he was afraid of God to vote otherwise than against opening the Exhibition. It was observed that the great petition of 65,000 asked for the opening only from 12 o’clock. Why was that? That was (with a shudder) in deference to the seven millions of Catholics, who were obliged to attend mass in the morning.

Mr. Hawley concluded by depicting at length and with great force the torrents of denunciation that would be let loose from now until November and long, long after it, upon those voting for the opening.

Mr. Donaldson, of Idaho, then took the floor to close the debate on the opening side. Mr. Donaldson’s speech was one of such stirring, magnificent eloquence that we feel it our duty to give it to our readers in its entirety. He said:—

When I look around me here, I look for the Archbishop of Canterbury, or the Archbishop of York, or the Vicar of Bray if you please. This Commission seems to have resolved itself into a college of Ecclesiastics.

The opinion has been stated by my friend from Massachusetts (Dr. Loring) that there would have been no Centennial if the religious sentiment had not been respected by the American people. I beg leave to present to the consideration of the gentlemen that if the forefathers of that good old Puritan country, from which Dr. Loring emanates, had had their wills, there would have been no Independence Hall—there would have been no Philadelphia. Did they not persecute those of a different faith? Did they not banish the Quakers from their country? Did they not burn witches? The great masses of the people have righted that in time.

We respect the Christian religion for what it has done. If the gentlemen in this Commission, who have espoused its cause, are the Lord’s anointed, I can only say, The Lord help the Lord for the selection of his agents. This is not a question of religion, but a question of right merely, and the will of the people should be respected in their demands. This is a free country, and the people are sovereign, and if the Commission is so foolhardy as to oppose its petty will to the sublime utterances of the people’s will, there will be a retrospect to them that is terrible. This is an unreligious country. I do not say it is an irreligious country, but an unreligious country. There is no State religion here, and the time will come when all the churches shall be compelled to pay their share in taxation for the purpose of supporting the government.

The Exhibition opened as a narrow gauge, and the power was vested in the hands of a narrow lot of men. The Exhibition should be run in the interest of the great number. You have referred to the Catholic religion, Mr. President. Say of that religion what you will (and I know it is deplorably hide-bound in many respects), this is to its credit, that it has always been known to combine the beautiful in life with the true in religion. In European countries the churches open in the morning, and all kinds of places of amusement are open in the afternoon. The theaters are open in St. Louis and the opera in New Orleans on Sunday.

You call this grand Exhibition a temple of God, but why don’t you open it for the million to worship in it? Are the walls and thousand pinnacles of this “temple” to be merely looked at from the outside?

Every Sunday the grounds have been opened to workmen, and hundreds have been at work—and with the knowledge of the gentlemen of the Commission too. Is not that as ungodly as merely coming to see the show on Sundays?

SHOWING UP THE HYPOCRITE.

A few weeks ago the President of this Commission, the same sanctimonious man who is presiding over this honorable body this minute, and who has but half an hour ago averred to you in the most solemn words that he was afraid before God to vote otherwise than for closing the Exhibition on Sundays—a few weeks ago General Hawley had himself admitted five Yankees from Boston to the Exhibition and showed them through on a Sunday. It was right that he did it. I do not censure, I applaud him. I have myself taken many into the Exhibition on Sundays. This same gentleman, the worthy President of our Commission, on another occasion, at a Sunday-school where he was invited to speak, told the little ones that it was an enormous crime to go and see the Exhibition on Sunday. Then you and I are both of the criminal class, Mr. President.

CRAWLING OUT OF IT.

General Hawley (in the attitude of a wet dishrag)—I admit that I took in six gentlemen on a Sunday. I did a wrong, and I am sorry for it.

Mr. Donaldson—This Exhibition is the property of the people. It does not belong to the Commission. It is only in their trust, and in all fairness they must do as the people will.

The streets swarm with the class who spend the Sabbath in desecration, who, if they could be allowed to enter on their only idle day, would be immeasurably benefited.

There are chances enough for reforming the world to higher standards of morality. There are the slums, the rum mills, and all the many hot-beds of vice and crime, right within a radius of five miles of us, by the thousand. Why are you not there, gentlemen, doing a noble work for humanity? Why do you sit around here sentimentalizing about Sunday, and depriving the people of their sacred right of religious liberty, and of the privilege of educating themselves, by visiting the Exhibition on the day most convenient to them?

You admitted Dom Pedro last Sunday and the Sunday before, and for my part I approve of it, for the emperor is an earnest reformer, and is working for the elevation of his people to the highest standard of civilization. Yet why do you refuse American citizens the same privilege? Are they not so good in your eyes as a foreign potentate?

My friend Kimball says that although he knows that the majority of the voters of New York want the Exhibition open on Sunday, yet he will vote against it. Whom does the gentleman represent? Himself?

It is said if we open on Sunday, many of the exhibitors will go home. I say let ’em go. Suppose I bought a house in Philadelphia, on a street where the cars didn’t run. Afterward tracks were laid and cars put on the street. Suppose I was much dissatisfied and refused to pay further taxes. Wouldn’t you think I was insane on the subject, and wouldn’t you advise me to put up with the street cars and pay my taxes, or else sell out and go? That’s what I want exhibitors to do who are not satisfied with the Sunday opening.

Then, again, gentlemen, where is your consistency? You close the gates because it’s “moral,” and you license the whisky peddlers on the grounds because—because its “moral.” This is a fine contrast, gentlemen. You may be proud of it.

Again was that $1,500,000 received from the government given by the Baptists, or the Presbyterians, or the Methodists? No! it is taxes. It is coined from the sweat of the poor. And now the poor come to you with their humble petition, and you turn them away. O gentlemen, have you hearts?

You tell me of the rabble that will tear down this glorious Exhibition if turned loose upon it on Sunday. Why, gentlemen, stop the gin mills, and you have no rabble. On the Fourth there were fifty thousand people at the Exhibition. Most of them were New Yorkers, and most of them of the so-called “lower classes.” Yet there was no disorder, and only one case of drunkenness. I’ll give you my word they will not “tear down this glorious Exhibition if turned loose upon it;” but if you do not yield to the clearly expressed demand of the people, I have my doubts that this will end peaceably. You may be forced to open the grounds.

The American people are a free people, and they have vitality enough to assert their freedom.

Mr. Donaldson resumed his seat amidst rapturous cheers from nearly two hundred people, who had been attracted to the spot by the speaking, and who were held spell-bound by the eloquence of the speaker.

THE VOTE ON THE QUESTION.

The vote was then put on Mr. Loring’s substitute and resulted as follows, the ayes voting in favor of closing and the nays for opening:—

Ayes—McCormick of Arizona, Paul of Colorado, Hawley of Connecticut, Dexter of District of Columbia, Osborn of Florida, Matthews of Illinois, Campbell of Indiana, Lowry of Iowa, Crawford of Kansas, Lynch of Louisiana, Nye of Maine, Latrobe of Maryland, French of Mississippi, Loring of Massachusetts, Collins of Michigan, Folwell of Minnesota, Moody of Nebraska, Haines of Nevada, Straw of New Hampshire, Beckwith of New York, Goshorn of Ohio, Morell of Pennsylvania, Corliss of Rhode Island, Parsons of Texas, Haydon of Utah, Chase of Vermont, Boteler of West Virginia, Atwood of Wisconsin, and Carey of Wyoming—29.

Nays—Nelson of Alabama, Lawrence of Arkansas, Creigh of California, Burbank of Dakota, Peters of Georgia, Donaldson of Idaho, McNeil of Missouri, Durfur of Oregon, Gurney of South Carolina, and Evans of Washington Territory—10.

The vote was then put on the passage of Mr. Donaldson’s resolution as amended, and resulted the same as above, with the exception that Creigh of California voted with the affirmative.—The Item.