GREAT PRETENSIONS by W. W. G.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 14, 1895

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 21, No. 45.

GREAT PRETENSIONS.

By W. W. G.

THE California State Sabbath Association would fain convey the idea that opponents of their efforts for a state Sunday law are an insignificant minority. But the facts would rather place the association itself in that position. The last popular vote on that subject (1882) gave about seventeen thousand majority in favor of repealing the old state law. And, although every Legislature since that time has been importuned to reënact the measure, its advocates have not been able even to bring it to a vote. But the latest evidence that the Sabbath Association’s attempt to pose as the great majority is sheer assumption, is found in its own membership. Although the effort to reorganize the dormant association was made last May, with a great flourish of trumpets, yet at their meeting held October 31 the secretary could report but forty members, and but a small proportion of these had paid the annual due of $1.00. The occasion of this meeting had been extensively advertised for fifty miles around San Francisco, a territory including fully one-third of the state’s population, yet not over a hundred persons were sufficiently interested to attend—and these were not all friends of the cause. It was also stated that ministers who were members of the Executive Committee had not attended any of the meetings of the committee, the operating of the association’s affairs being left mainly to the president and secretary, a couple of superannuated and decidedly feeble ministers. According to the addresses, papers, and resolutions delivered, read, and passed at this last meeting, the members pretended to deem the enactment of a state Sunday law the one all-important means for the preservation of the Christian religion and the advancement of the popular welfare in this state, yet none of the really active men could be induced to take official responsibility for the furtherance of such a great work. So the invalid president was required to shoulder the additional duties of field secretary. Such are the straits of a so-called state association that poses as representing the majority of the people, and resolves that the minority must not oppose its work.

All special Sunday laws are religious legislation, and therefore not within the purview of any legislative body. It is safe to say that not one feature of the Sunday legislation usually demanded would be called for by any person or persons were not Sunday deemed a religious day. And the California Sabbath Association admits the religious character of such legislation by the plea that it is for the protection of the Christian religion and the protection of the day as the Sabbath. These are the main pillars of their arguments, the plea for the workingman’s rest on that particular day being of the same character, as they do not manifest any special concern for the working classes with respect to any other time or season. But even were the subject of the Sabbath a legitimate one for civil legislation, and were it a question that could properly be decided by a majority, the California Sabbath Association would, if logical and consistent, cease its great pretensions and its implied slurs at the opposition of the “minority.”

W. W. G.