“Congress Refuses to Forbid Sunday Toll in the National Capital”
By W. A. Colcord
Under the above heading, the Cornerstone of June 27, the official organ of the Prohibition party of the State of Ohio, published at Marblehead, Ohio, says:— “The Congressional Record for June 11 (page 8518), should be studied by Christian citizens. The national capital having no Sunday law, and Christian business men having been appealed to for twenty years in vain to urge Congress to bring the capital into civilization in this respect, the clerks of the Washington meat shops, a hundred or so, hired a lawyer to lobby for Sunday rest for provision stores only. By making a labor movement of it, he carried the District Commissioners, the House District Committee, and has now carried the House, and will probably get it through the Senate later.” “But Commissioners and Committee and Congress in the House have all refused to add a prohibition of Sunday work on railroads and buildings, although it has been shown that the hardest form of Sunday toil—digging in the mud upon and driving dirt carts—was common about new government buildings and other public and private works. The explanation is that the Sunday workers did not ask Sunday rest, nor anybody for them, except the preachers. The debate shows that twenty millions of church-members in this country have had less influence upon Congress in this matter because they have neglected to express themselves, though often urged, than twenty thousand Seventh-day Adventists, who believe the United States government is to become by Sunday legislation ‘the third beast’ of Revelation, the successor of Nero and the Inquisition in persecution, and have therefore sent more petitions against a District Sunday law than all the ninety-nine and nine-tenths per cent of the people who are not Saturdayans. There is yet a chance to influence the Senate.” The earmarks of the International Reform Bureau, “the first ‘Christian lobby’ established at our national capital to speak to the government in behalf of all denominations,” are quite discernible here. The term “Saturdarians” is the familiar epithet by which the founder of this “Christian lobby” has for years designated the observers of the Bible Sabbath. The comparison of the work done by twenty thousand Seventh-day Adventists with that not done by twenty million Sunday-keepers is also familiar, as is also the complaint about driving “dirt carts” on Sunday in the District of Columbia. Four things, however, are worthy of note in this report:— 1. The national capital having no Sunday law, for twenty years some one has been appealing to the business men here to urge Congress to pass a Sunday law, and thus bring this nation within the realm of “civilization.” Hitherto, not having such a law, it has been a barbarous and “uncivilized” nation. 2. The appeal to the business men having proved a failure, another plan was tried. The clerks of the Washington meat shops were by some means stirred up to “hire a lawyer to lobby for Sunday rest.” By making a “labor movement” of what is in reality a religious movement, the effort has proved partially successful. It carried with the District Commissioners, in the House District Committee, and in the House (June 11), “and will probably get through the Senate later.” If so, this “meat shop” Sunday law will have the honor of being the first straight Sunday law Congress has ever passed, and will, according to its promoters, we suppose, mark the beginning of our national “civilization.” 3. But while the Commissioners, the Committee, and the House dealt thus generously with the “meat men,” they refused to give any relief to other Sunday toilers. And why? The reason given is because “the Sunday workers did not ask Sunday rest, nor anybody for them, except the preachers.” They never fail to ask for Sunday laws. Were it not for “the preachers,” we presume there would be no Sunday laws. In21the Christian Statesman of July 3, 1890, the present superintendent and manager of the International Reform Bureau said: “During nearly all our American history the churches have influenced the States to make and improve Sabbath laws.” And in the same paper, under date of April 11, 1889, explaining why a national Sunday law was desired, he said: “The national law is needed to make the State laws complete and effective.” It seems a pity that this business of “civilizing” States and nations by means of Sunday laws, and compelling the people to be religious by Sunday enforcement, is left so largely to the “preachers” and the “churches”. 4. The reference to the influence which twenty thousand seventh-day observers who believe the prophecies of the book of Revelation, have exerted in preventing unjust legislation desired by twenty millions of church-members, reminds one of the story of Gideon’s army, and of the promise made by God to his people, that ‘one shall chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight.’ We make no boasts, and take no glory or credit to ourselves; but we know that God, by his Holy Spirit, and through humble means, has been at work to stay the incoming tide of evil until the truth for this time shall have been more fully proclaimed. For this we are truly thankful. We hope our brethren will make note of this, and take courage, and remember that in their religious liberty work their labor is not in vain.