SUNDAY-LAW HEARING IN MASSACHUSETTS
BEFORE a committee of the Massachusetts Legislature, February 7, there was held a hearing on “a bill to provide a weekly rest-day for employees of transportation companies.” As always, the petitioners for the bill, and those who pleaded for it before the committee, were preachers. From the employees of transportation companies there were present more, it would seem, to oppose the bill, than there were of the preachers to advocate it. Yet the preachers insisted to the committee that “although the railroad men present were against the bill, it should be passed, as it is best for them.” But, “as most of the petitioners were ministers and representatives of organizations, in no way connected with railroading, the conductors, brakemen, and engineers who were present demanded the privilege of running their own affairs, and claimed to know what they wanted as well as anybody else.” One of the advocates of the bill, as usual, took pains to explain that the bill had “no relations to Sabbath-day observance. There is no objection to running trains on Sunday, but the bill attempts to make up to transportation employees for their loss of Sunday. The proposed law will furnish work for one-seventh more men. Mr. Buttrick then went on to show the great increase of Sunday travel, and the growing number of men who are compelled to work seven days in the week. He said that the continuous toil is causing men to deteriorate in many ways. General Bancroft told him that the motormen and conductors of the Boston elevated are better paid than the average clergyman. From this Mr. Buttrick concluded that they could better afford to give up a day than mill hands and others who can not work seven days if they want to.” “After several railroad men had tried to cross-examine Mr. Buttrick, he refused to answer questions, and Rev. G. G. Farwell was called. He said that for five years the committee of the Congregational general association had tried to get the bill. He stated that conductors and motormen of the Boston elevated do not dare to come and petition for a day of rest; moreover, they do not dare even to frequently ask for a day off, as, if they do, they will lose their places. The opposition to the bill, he said, came from steam-railroad men, who have a day off each week.” “The next witness for the petitioners was Rev. Doremus Scudder, of Woburn. Dr. Scudder went on to explain how, although they work seven days in a week, lawyers, doctors, and ministers can get recreation by a very long vacation or by the variety of their work. He thought workingmen who do the same thing day after day should be compelled to rest.” “Rev. W. H. Allbright pictured a horrible future for labor which must work seven days in order to live, and claimed that it is the duty of the State to compel the transportation men to do what is good for them, whether they wish to or not.” “The principle of the State legislating for the good of the man, whether by his consent or not, was laid down by the next speaker, Rev. A. A. Beale, of Brighton.” “Rev. Daniel Evans, of Cambridge, stated that all great reforms do not come from the people to be benefited, but from those outside who are able to see what they need better than the beneficiaries themselves.” “H. M. Sweeney, representing the building trades council of Boston, said that the bill looks toward one great principle of organized labor; namely, to lessen the hours of labor. Men should not be allowed to work seven days a week, because they thereby prevent other men from getting any work. It is also necessary that a man shall not work too long, as thereby the public is endangered, as the motorman, engineer, or conductor is not alert and at his best if he has no rest.” “George E. McNeil told how he was grieved at this time, when the century is just beginning, to find intelligent men opposing the bill in question. Then Mr. McNeil brought up the old question of leisure promoting efficiency, and thereby increasing payment. ‘Wherever the Sabbath day is invaded by labor,’ said Mr. McNeil, ‘there civilization has deteriorated.’ We want not the religious seventh day, but a labor sabbath. We always find men willing to follow the boss wherever he may lead. Of ten thousand people employed on street railways, eight thousand are compelled to work seven days a week. The extra men make about two dollars and a half or three dollars a week. Make the regular men work one day less a week, and these extra men will have a larger income, because they will get more work. The American Federation of Labor stands for one day’s rest in seven, but railroad men think they are too good for association with carpenters and painters. As Mr. McNeil was generalizing to a considerable extent, the chairman of the committee, Senator Butler, reminded him of the subject at hand.” “Rev. M. D. Kneeland, secretary of the New England Sabbath Protective League, said he considered that the proposed bill would make a wise law.” “Rev. Carey, of the Methodist preachers’ meeting, said the bill would serve the workingmen, the community, and the commonwealth.” “A representative of the Presbyterian ministers’ meeting also appeared in favor of the bill.” “C. D. Baker, president of the legislative board of railway employees, opened the opposition to the bill. He said that, except in emergencies, men of the steam railroads are not compelled to work on Sunday. If the bill were passed, Sunday would be cheapened and brought down like other days. Mr. Baker stated that it is fitting that clergymen should come here to try to get a day off for railroad men, as he was sure that the man who first agitated a Sunday train on the Boston and Albany railroad was a minister who wanted to get into town to his church. Regarding the employment of extra men, Mr. Baker said that extra men can not be employed indiscriminately on a steam railroad, as they are unable to protect the public. He said he knew that steam-railroad employees do not want legislation on this subject.” “J. Johnson said that for about fifty years he has worked seven days a week, six days for the railroad and one for the church, singing in the choir and being paid for it.” “J. H. Parant said that the railway conductors’ association is against the bill. It would not call for the employment of extra men, and to the twenty-five thousand employees of the Boston and Maine not more than a handful would be added, but the regular men would have to lengthen their hours of work. About the only men who work Sunday are those who do it to get extra money. Not three per cent of the railroad employees in Massachusetts would want this bill. ‘We are not directed by any officials,’ said he, ‘but we have no trouble in approaching the president, and without a committee. We know very well that all these clergymen want is Sunday observance, and that the present bill is only an entering wedge. We can now get off almost any time, and are sure of it; under the proposed law, we should never know when we should have any time to ourselves.’” “Chairman Butler then asked all the remonstrants to rise, and forty-three stood up, representing every division of the Boston and Maine, the New York, New Haven and Hartford, and Boston and Albany railroads.” “J. B. O’Connell quoted statistics showing that the railroad men are the second longest-lived class of people, and doctors last.” “A. H. Brown said that on the Fitchburg division of the Boston and Maine a few men work twelve days and lay off two; most of them have Sunday.” “Mr. Stone, an engineer and member of the Congregational Church, said that the bill would take forty-three men out of his church. He had never worked Sundays, because he had scruples, and the trainmaster respected them.” “J. H. McDonald said he had worked for eighteen years at railroading, and many Sundays, and did not feel deteriorated. When he asked to be relieved of Sunday work, the request was granted.” “The hearing then adjourned.” It has been observed that “where ambition can be so happy as to cover its enterprises, even to the person himself, under the appearance of principle, it is the most incurable and inflexible of all human passions.” And it is equally true that where professed leaders in morals have deliberately deluded themselves into maintaining a confessedly false issue upon false pretenses, “for righteousness’ sake,” they have committed themselves to the control of a passion that is as blind and cruel as that other is incurable and inflexible. Every one of those preachers knows full well that to ask for legislation in behalf of “the Sabbath” or of enforcing Sabbath observance is unconstitutional, un-American, un-Protestant, and un-Christian. This is clearly shown by their being careful to disavow all intention of asking legislation enforcing a religious sabbath: “we want not the religious seventh day, but a labor sabbath.” Yet every one of them knows that there is no sabbath but a religious sabbath; and that their so-called “labor sabbath” which they demand is identically to the very minute the religious sabbath that they profess to exclude. Thus they shift the issue, and boldly demand the very thing which at the outset they profess to exclude, and so commit themselves to an utterly false issue. Then, the easier to maintain their false issue, they put themselves forward as the champions of the “poor oppressed laboring man.” Then, when it is demonstrated that the “poor oppressed” ones whom they have championed “are better paid than the average clergyman,”—that is, that the “poor oppressed” whom they have assumed to champion are neither so “poor” nor so “oppressed” as are the average of the class who put themselves forward as the champions,—the fact is deftly turned in their own favor by the additional cool assumption that those can so much the better afford to have these as their champions, and submit to their will. Then, further, when the ones whom they have especially championed appear, and openly and decidedly repudiate these self-constituted champions, and assert their ability to know what they themselves want as well as anybody else, and demand to be let alone to exercise the privilege of running their own affairs,—then they are met with the enormous proposition that “those outside are able to see what they need better than the beneficiaries themselves;” that “the State must compel these persons to do what is good for them, whether they wish to or not”! All of this is the very philosophy and argument of the Inquisition. And in it all there is a terrible danger, though this danger is unperceived by those who are so zealously pursuing the dangerous course. Yet this great danger is especially to those who are so zealously pursuing that course. It has been presented by another, as follows:— “No real supporter of these laws can persuade himself, even by trying to persuade others, that either he or his fellow Brownists of the past or present time care in the least for the physical benefits which may or may not result from the enforcement of the idle and cheerless Sunday. All Brownists know perfectly well that their idle and cheerless Sunday was originally established in England as a theological institution, and without any reference whatever to physical considerations; that wherever it is established in the United States, the motive of its establishment is a religious motive, the stimulus of its enforcement is a religious stimulus, and no regard for social and sanitary results inspires its advocates. They know that if it were demonstrated that their idle and cheerless Sunday is a positive injury to the bodies of men, and a disorganizing social influence, their zeal for ‘the day’ would not in the least abate, and that they would simply regard whatever inconvenience it might entail on the154individual or the body politic, as ‘a suffering for righteousness’ sake.” “They will prate of the ‘secular sabbath,’ ‘the overworked laboring man,’ ‘police regulations,’ etc., etc., being all the while perfectly aware that they are guilty of false pretenses, and are throwing a mask on this dogma of Brownism, and seeking to keep it in the statute book by imposition, and by making it appear to others that it is a certain thing, and has a certain purpose, when they know that it is no such thing, and has no such purpose; and that, if it were any such thing or had any such purpose, they would not care in the least either for the passage or the enforcement of a Sunday law.” “Knowing all this, are they not clearly guilty of a high and execrable degree of intellectual dishonesty when they pretend that the object of Sunday laws is the physical betterment of the race, and that they are supporters of these laws for any such reason? Cato wondered how one augur could look another in the face without laughing. It is difficult to understand how any intelligent Brownist can use this secular argument for the idle and cheerless Sunday without blushing at his own insincerity.” “But whether the red signal flag of the blush is flown or not, the corruption exists within. The man is false to himself. He has prostituted his intelligence. He has sold his soul. He has done evil that good may come. He has undertaken to obtain under false pretenses the ‘goods’ of idleness and cheerlessness on the first day of the week. And a soul that has once been bartered is ever thereafter in the market. A clergyman who is compelled in defense of a dogma or tenet of his sect to be intellectually dishonest, ought to resign; for nowhere does falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus [false in one, false in all] apply more absolutely than to such a case. If he once plays fast and loose with his own spirit, at the dictation of tradition or convention, he will do it again at the command of interest or desire. The consciousness of his own degradation will never leave him; no second baseness will lower him any further in his own esteem. He has lost his bearings on the ocean of morals. How is he safely to steer any longer, either for himself or others?” Such is the beginning of a course which easily and inevitably leads to the office of the actual inquisitor, in the workings of the Inquisition itself.