Refuses to Close on Sunday
By J. F. Blunt
SANTA MONICA has declined, by a vote of 2,173 to 814, to close the saloons of that California city on Sunday. The women again are said to be responsible for the defeat of the proposition, and some capital is made of the result in attempted vindication of the judgment of those temperance advocates who thought the campaign for state-wide prohibition ought to be deferred until 1916. It may be said, however, that the vote at Santa Monica was influenced by the fear that the closing of the saloons there, while they still were tolerated elsewhere, might drive Sunday visitors from the beach, and so lead to financial losses to the entire city. Moreover, the women whose votes determined the issue were not so ignorant as to regard as a strict temperance measure the plan to suspend the liquor traffic Sunday, when it was to be allowed to proceed with municipal sanction the other six days of the week. Manifest Preference for Sunday
Despite the claim that Sunday closing is demanded on purely secular grounds, the sectarian preference for the first day of the week always is apparent. Observers of the seventh day take no part with the opposition, even when such inadequate means of relief from the evils of intemperance are proposed, in view of the wholly defenseless nature of the liquor business; but they, in common with the general public, well know that mingled with the temperance sentiment at such times is the bigoted desire to exalt Sunday as the Sabbath, contrary to the plain teachings of Scripture. The result at Santa Monica again emphasizes the need of a broader basis for75temperance legislation than the mere suspension of the saloon traffic for a day, with its legalized sufferance for the rest of the week. Local business rivalries tend to the defeat of Sunday closing, and to the exposure of the sophistries invoked in its favor; but absolute prohibition, which would affect the entire community, without regard for township boundaries, would enlist the sympathies and insure the cooperation of all who favor adequate legislation in the interest of temperance. With a realizing sense of the horrors of intemperance, and with an abhorrence of the state-supported saloon menace, true Sabbath-keepers will join hands with true temperance advocates in the endeavor to wipe out the disgrace in California in 1914. Moving Pictures and the Saloons
Convinced that the fight is on, the organized liquor dealers are said to have adopted the moving-picture method of influencing the vote soon to be taken. It is proposed to take views of the great vineyards of California, and of other extensive establishments liable to be affected by the closing of the saloons, for public exhibition, in the hope that citizens may vote against prohibition, as a means of preserving these interests. If other films should be prepared, showing even a tithe of the misery and degradation resulting from the maintenance of the saloon traffic, a truer picture of the real issue could be presented. Whether the ensuing struggle shall result in the immediate closing of all saloons in California or not, the vote of the people will show most certainly the growing opposition to the whisky traffic, unmodified by local considerations such as prevailed at Santa Monica. Should the campaign fail of the accomplishment of the relief demanded, no one conversant with the situation can reasonably question that the issue could be presented with still greater probability of success two years later than were the fight deferred until that time in the first instance.