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A Sunday Closing Bill

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Mar 29, 1906

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 83, No. 13.

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A Sunday Closing Bill

By Editor

Among the Sunday bills introduced in the present Congress is one “requiring certain places of business in the District of Columbia to be closed on Sunday.” This bill provides “that it shall be unlawful for any person in the District of Columbia to sell or to offer for sale, or to keep open any place of business for the sale or delivery of, any groceries or meats or vegetables or other provisions on Sunday except that from the first day of June until the first day of October meats sold prior to Sunday may be delivered at any time before ten o’clock of the morning of that day.” A fine is imposed for the first offense, and a fine or imprisonment, or both, for each subsequent offense.
We must believe that those who are urging the enactment of Sunday laws are sincere, but their sincerity does not prevent them from proposing some remarkable legislation.
This bill is a fair sample of the inconsistencies in which the promoters of religion by law are involved. If this measure becomes a law, it will at once become a crime, punishable even by imprisonment, to sell “meats or vegetables or other provisions” on Sunday, although the sale of tobacco in all its forms, spirituous liquors, under certain restrictions, newspapers, soda water, etc., is still permitted. Can any good reason be given why it should be made a crime to sell the necessaries of life on Sunday while the things which injure and demoralize may be sold on that day?
Furthermore, in the exception to the law certain work is lawful for a few hours on Sunday, but on the stroke of ten it becomes a crime. Why? Is the work forbidden after ten so that it may be easier to attend church at eleven? Is Congress being asked to assist in securing a good attendance at church? If this step is taken and the attendance is not increased, will a more stringent measure be demanded? And what will the end be?
In the last Congress a bill which was in substance the same as this was passed by the House of Representatives, but was not acted upon by the Senate. We hope that the present House Committee on the District of Columbia may decide that it is not wise to enter upon this path of religious legislation.