p. 725 | WOULD HAVE A STRICT SUNDAY IN OREGON

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, Cal. · Nov 23, 1915

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 42, No. 46.

WOULD HAVE A STRICT SUNDAY IN OREGON

By Hampton Watson Cottrell

The Supreme Court Says Sunday Law Is Constitutional—Seeking by Initiative for a Stricter Law—Would Not Even Allow the Selling of a Sunday Paper

By HAMPTON WATSON COTTRELL

The people represented by this paper have been teaching, for more than half a century, that Sunday will be made a test through civil law, and that finally general persecution will be felt throughout the world. They have taught that this nation will take the lead in enforcing the Sunday institution by civil law, despite the fact that Sunday observance has no warrant whatever in Scripture.

There have been indications, all along, showing that forces were in preparation that would fulfill the prophecy. Recently there has been activity in many localities in the matter of the enforcement of state Sunday laws. There have been striking instances of this in Oklahoma. And now, as shown by the following article by Elder Cottrell, Oregon is having an epidemic of arrests for performing common labor on Sunday. A large number of cases are before the courts in Portland. Elder Cottrell promises to keep us fully informed on this matter.

To those who are watching the developments, it is clear that we are fulfilling that important prophecy. Such occurrences are intensely interesting. The success of the pope in securing freedom from Sunday labor on the part of prisoners in the various nations of Europe is also a very significant occurrence. And the many things taken together show the spirit that is seeking to take possession of the world. Dr. A. R. Bell's articles that are now appearing in this paper give a quiet presentation of the prophecies in Revelation and foretell the issues to be met in the world over the observance of Sunday, and what it will finally terminate in.

EDITOR.

The Oregon Sunday law has for years been practically a dead letter, but it has just been brought into prominence by two recent court decisions and the arrest of twelve Portland grocers. Judge Morrow, of the Circuit Court, rendered an opinion in which he declared the Oregon Sunday law unconstitutional. His decision was reversed by a written opinion of Justice Burnett, of the State Supreme Court, declaring it constitutional.

In his written opinion, Justice Burnett is quoted as saying: “The principle rendering it lawful to forbid the pursuit of an occupation on Sunday is settled in this state. . . . The underlying reason for the rule is the propriety of providing a day of rest and relaxation for those who are engaged in certain employments.” Again, “We are concerned only with the authority and not with the wisdom of the lawmakers.”

It will be readily observed that a chief justice questions the wisdom of the men who made the Sunday law, hence must of necessity question the justice and righteousness of the law itself.

Said he, “The law exempts from its provisions theaters, drug stores, doctors’ offices, undertakers, livery stable keepers, butchers, and bakers.” On the other hand, it prohibits the opening on Sunday of any “store, shop, grocery, bowling alley, billiard room, or tipping house, . . . or any place of amusement.”

UPHOLDS THE EXEMPTIONS

Justice Burnett justifies the statutory exemptions mentioned above, in the following language: “A good reason for this may be found in the fact that drug stores, doctor shops, undertakers, butchers, bakers, and livery stable keepers minister to wants that are more imperative, as a rule, than those supplied by the general run of business in the occupations named, while theaters afford mental diversion conducive to rest and relaxation. The emergency involved gives color and sanction to the exception. The law applies to all persons coming within the class described and limited in the statute. We are convinced that the classification set out in the statute is reasonable, and that the legislation is a proper exercise of the police power.”

Photo Underwood & Underwood. Troops from Newfoundland going to the front in the European war. This is a specimen of the splendid manhood that is being sacrificed to the god of war.

SUNDAY CLOSING AND THE MINISTERS

Quoting from the Portland Oregonian of September 28, 1915, in a report of the Methodist Episcopal annual conference held at Roseburg, we have the following: “One important resolution introduced was in regard to the ministers with reference to the Sunday closing law recently held to be valid by the Supreme Court. The resolution was entitled ‘The Sanctity of the Sabbath.’” It was further reported: “The ministers rejoiced in the decision of the Supreme Court, and declared it to be the resolve of every minister to do all within his power . . . to keep the law in effect and cause its strict enforcement.”

WILL MAKE A STILL MORE STRINGENT ONE

“Rev. G. L. Tufts, head of the social service committee, reported that a still more stringent law was in the making, and would be submitted at the next general election. He said he hoped to have the law so strict as to make it impossible even to buy a Sunday newspaper.”

CIVIL LAW TO ENFORCE SABBATH SANCTITY

Be it observed that this great body of ministers unhesitatingly associate Sunday law enforcement with the sanctity of the Sabbath, as before mentioned. Dr. G. L. Tufts, field secretary of the “One-day-of-rest-in-seven [Sunday] League,” was one of the assembly, and participated in their deliberations; and there is no record of his entering a protest against their frankly expressed idea of the “sanctity of the sabbath” enforcement by civil law. Yet he and his associates publicly profess that they desire civic rest only.

In the written opinion of the Oregon Supreme Court in which existing Sunday laws were declared constitutional, which decision was hailed with delight by Mr. G. L. Tufts, of Berkeley, California, and his associates in Oregon, the exemptions the law now makes, providing that certain stores and theaters remain open on Sunday, are also declared to be proper and for the best public good; and this, being in the same written

opinion, must also be, in the judgment of the supreme justice, constitutional. But this part of the opinion of the court does not meet the mind of Dr. Tufts; so he is reported as saying that “a still more stringent law was in the making, and would be submitted at the next general election. He said he hoped to have the law so strict as to make it impossible even to buy a Sunday newspaper.” By the proposed initiative Sunday law, they purpose to rescind existing exemptions in the present laws.

WILL “PERMIT” THEM

In a lecture delivered in the Centenary Methodist Church in Portland, October 17, 1915, Mr. Tufts, speaking of the proposed initiative Sunday law, said, “Opposition is expected from the Seventh-day Adventists, and others who are in the habit of observing Saturday as a day of worship; but the framers of the bill hope to

overcome this opposition by a provision in the measure that will PERMIT them to transact business on Sunday.”

If lawmakers have the right to grant exemptions to seventh-day keepers, they have equal right to repeal the exemptions at will. And this is the very character of legislation that our National Reform friends purpose to enact in the proposed air-tight Sunday lid law, to be so rigid that drug stores, doctors’ offices, theaters, baseball games, and all places of amusement shall thereafter be closed on Sunday, the day they believe to be the Sabbath. Surely all such laws are religio-civil laws; and so are all such proposed initiative measures when unmasked, as was done at the Methodist Episcopal conference, when, treating upon the question of the Sunday closing law, they are reported to have entitled their resolution “The Sanctity of the Sabbath.” The religious feature continually crops out.

WILL SHUT OUT THE EXEMPTION NEXT

Should the Sunday lid be sealed on in the proposed initiative measure to be submitted to the voters of Oregon at the next general election, with the exception of exemption made for seventh-day keepers, how long would it be until some one would arise claiming to seek the public good, and, again disagreeing with a written opinion of a Supreme Court relative to exemptions, propose another initiative measure to repeal the exemption?

Civil government was ordained of God to protect every man in the enjoyment of his natural, God-given rights, and in the free exercise of conscience, provided only that in the carrying out of one’s ideas of rights, he does not invade the equal rights of any other person. Hence it was not ordained to abridge

the rights of a class, or of the minority of men, not even the small minority of one man. Religious legislation is class legislation, therefore an invasion of divine rights.

IN THE INTEREST OF RELIGION AND NOT LIBERTY

The proposed initiative law is pretendedly sought in the interest of the continuously worked miners and shop and factory people. Yet the same proposed law, by placing them in slavery through forbidding them to attend theaters for relaxation, or baseball, or other games for amusement, savors of tyranny in the interest of sectarian religion.

Every voter should enter his protest against legislation in the interest of Sunday, Friday, Saturday, or any other phase of religio-civil laws.

There is no force exerted by the civil law in the religion of Jesus Christ. “We persuade men.” 2 Cor. 5: 11.