In Favor of Sunday Laws
By K. C. RUSSELL
A MEETING OF the Woman's Interdenominational Missionary Union was held May 7 in the Foundry M. E. church, of Washington. The object of the meeting was to discuss the Sunday law question. The chief speaker was Representative Heflin, of Alabama, who introduced a one of the Sunday bills now before Congress. He said, in part, as reported in the Washington Evening Star of May 7, 1906:— “In this republic the voice of a majority of the people is supreme; the majority rules. That a vast majority of the people of America sanction the observance of the Christian Sunday is borne out in the fact that every State in the Union except two has a Sunday law. Can it be that these States enjoying the blessings of a Sunday law will, through their representatives in Congress, deny them to you? Will the members of this Congress vote for a Sunday law for the District of Columbia? I have had many of them tell me that they would support my bill, but the trouble is in getting the committee to report the bill. Go to your commissioners in the District and plead with them to report my bill to the committee on the District of Columbia with a recommendation that it be reported favorably to the House, and I believe that the House will pass it.” “This is a Christian nation — declared to be so by the Supreme Court of the United States. Our fathers and mothers have set apart the Christian Sunday as a day of rest. It has been observed and sanctioned by the usages and customs of a vast majority of the American people. It is well that one day out of every seven should be designated as a day of rest.” After Representative Heflin's address, it was moved and adopted: “That the Woman's Interdenominational Missionary Union express its appreciation of the efforts of Representatives Wadsworth, Heflin, and Allen in behalf of better Sunday laws for the District. It was also decided that Congress be petitioned to make an appropriation for the Jamestown Exposition on condition that the gates be closed Sundays.” Among others who spoke were Dr. Crafts, and Mrs. Dubois, the wife of Senator Dubois, of Idaho. This meeting is only another evidence of the persistent efforts that are being exerted by the promoters of Sunday legislation to secure what they have so long sought to obtain, a national Sunday law. K. C. RUSSELL.