p. 12 | Sunday Legislation

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jun 3, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 22.

Sunday Legislation

Sunday Legislation.—Massachusetts has passed a Sunday law which makes it a misdemeanor for an individual to be employed for more than six days out of the week. Exceptions are made to newspaper workers, janitors, bakers, drug clerks, and persons caring for fires and machinery. From the list of exceptions, it would seem that not very many people are left to whom the law would apply, particularly in a manufacturing state like Massachusetts.

The united cooks' organization of Chicago are petitioning the legislature of Illinois for a Sunday law that will give the cook one day's rest in seven. A bill has been introduced into the legislature which provides for fines ranging from $25 to $100 for employers who refuse to give their cooks a day's rest out of each week. Every individual is entitled to a day of rest. He should have manhood enough to assert himself and secure it. This has been done over and over again by thousands upon thousands of individuals who had a conscience in the matter and who demanded a day of rest because of their conscience. But where there is no conscience involved in the question, for the state to compel people to refrain from labor on any day, whether they so desire or not, will work evil rather than good. We have history upon the question, that shows this conclusively. The first step is to secure a general day of rest by law. Then the masses of people will go to the parks and other places of recreation and amusement. This will be unpleasing to the clergy, and a little later there will be laws that will require attendance at church. It was so in the fourth and fifth centuries, and on down through the Middle Ages; and similar causes and actions will produce similar effects, regardless of the fact that we believe that we are sheltered by the advancement and civilization of the twentieth century.