p. 149 | A FREE SUNDAY

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 30, 1879

A FREE SUNDAY.

A Mr. Reitzel, in a speech in Patterson Park, Baltimore, Sunday afternoon, Sept. 28, said:—

“There are about 100,000 Germans in this city, and if these, taking all the circumstances into consideration, would cast their vote in the right direction, Baltimore would soon have a free Sunday. The great majority of the people are in favor of a free Sunday, and there are only a few bigoted people who wish to perpetuate the ‘Sabbath of the olden time.’”

He was followed by a Mr. Lewis N. Hirshberg, who, after declaring that no persons had a better right than the Germans to “strike from the statute books the many objectionable parts of the Sunday law,” said:—

“No, my friends; I tell you the time has come when the people, and consequently the Legislature, can no longer remain indifferent to these things, or to the behests of so large a portion of the law-abiding citizens of this city, and as a matter of policy, if for no other reason, they will modify them. Last year the petition sent to Annapolis, and signed by 7,000 people, was pigeon-holed, after having been made the special order of the day, through the influence of a few citizens and ministers. We will take the same steps next year, send another petition, and if this, too, is pigeon-holed, why we will take more decided steps, and send men there who will listen and act upon the moderate requests of our best citizens, and in this way modify this chip from the block of ‘the old blue laws.’”

This speech was received with tremendous applause. It shows how the Sunday question is being forced into politics. In Newark, N. J., it has already been made a test question. In the election in that city, Oct. 15, the German vote, which has heretofore been Republican, was cast solidly for the Democratic anti-Sunday and free-liquor candidate for mayor, giving him a majority of 3,367. Commenting on this, the Christian Statesman of Oct. 16 says:—

“But this does not settle the Sabbath [Sunday] question by a long way, even in Newark. It only shows the utterly unscrupulous character of the liquor and anti-Sabbath [anti-Sunday] interest, and that it holds all other political principles and issues subordinate to the supreme issue of license for immorality. This will help to emancipate Christian men from party bondage, and combine them in loyalty to Christian principles as supreme over all other considerations.”

There is already seen a determination on both sides which is rarely manifested at so early a stage in any controversy.