For a Sunday-rest Law.—
By Editor
The Berkeley (Cal.) Independent of January 29 gives a friendly and evidently inspired report of Dr. G. L. Tufts’ lecture in behalf of a Sunday-rest law. Dr. Tufts is a representative of the International Reform Bureau, an organization which has had for its purpose for years placing Christian laws and usages on an undeniable legal basis. He tells in his lectures of the splendid Sunday law that he induced Idaho to pass, and he is in California for the same purpose. According to this report, many saloonkeepers are well satisfied to have a weekly rest day. Just as tho they could not have it from their nefarious business without a law! He also tells us that the law to be introduced to the next California Legislature will be based upon the personal rights of all classes. “It will not be a religious statute, and it will not forbid Sunday labor on the part of those who regularly observe another day of the week as their rest day.” But the very exemption that it gives shows that it is of a religious character. Try to hide it as men may, it is religious in its nature, and the sentiment behind it is wholly a religious sentiment. It is demanding that one class of religionists shall be favored by the law to the extent of supporting by statute law a religious dogma held by them; and, conversely, if carried to the ultimate it would brand as criminal those who are opposed to the class tenets. No Sunday law was ever framed that was equable or impartial. Like all other religious laws, in the very nature of the case, it can not be. It may make hypocrites of men; it will never make them better citizens or change their moral natures. A Kansas City paper of January 15 has an article headed “‘Crime Rampant,’ says Wallace; ‘Disregard of Sunday Laws Results in Lawlessness; Never Knew Times so Bad; Courts Powerless to Punish Wholesale Violators.’” Judge Wallace is quoted as saying: “Crime is more rampant in Kansas City to-day than at any time since it was merely Westport Landing. I have been in the city practising at the courts the greater part of my life; for four years I was prosecuting attorney, and I have prosecuted and defended hundreds of criminals; but I have never seen the time when there was as much lawlessness here as there is now. The situation is getting worse every day. There seems to be everywhere an utter disregard of the law. There are fifteen men now waiting to be tried for murder. Just recently forty-two men were sent in one body from here to the state penitentiary, the greatest single consignment to that institution in Missouri history.”
All the above is doubtless true. We have no disposition to dispute the judge as to facts within his observation. What we do wish to say, however, is that the judge’s remedy, the enforcement of Sunday laws, will never stop the tide of crime. We are living the life of Rome over again. Men like Judge Wallace saw the increasing tide of crime then. They endeavored to put themselves in God’s stead and legislate for Him. They said that if the Sunday was protected, and the theaters, which came in competition with the churches, were closed, times would be better. But out of that legislation grew all the persecutions of the Dark Ages, all the horrors of the Inquisition. Our state laws have been molded to some extent to the same principle, while the opposite is asserted in the state constitutions. The federal Constitution separated all religion from the civil law, by declaring it to be no part of the work of the legislative body. The treaty with Tripoli declared that Christianity was no part of American law, and in 1829-30 Congress declared the same thing. Judge Wallace and others of similar mind are doing a work which will carry us back to persecution for conscience’ sake, the rejuvenescence of the Inquisition and the Dark Ages. They are sowing what is to them sweet zephyrs; are they willing to reap the whirlwind? A despatch from Rome dated February 1 makes the statement that the government of Italy regards itself, or the Italian people, as the real owners of the Vatican, including its art treasures, libraries, gold and silver, jewels and antiquities. The principle is stated in a despatch sent by the late Premier Crispi to the Italian ambassador in Berlin. This despatch has just come to light. The German government inquired what Italy meant to do if the pope decides to demand entrance fees to the Vatican museums, and the Italian government, thru its premier, replied, “Report to the German government that this is a matter of politics and that we will discuss it only as a matter of information.” “Since the pope is no longer king of Rome, and the Vatican palaces, with all they contain, are now the inviolable property of the Italian nation, the pope has no right whatever to charge admission to the museums, for under the law of guarantees he is but the beneficiary of the Vatican properties, our tenant. The establishment of entrance fees to galleries, owned by the Italian government, is equivalent to levying taxes, and in levying taxes the pope, being no longer a sovereign, is assuming rights that do not belong to him.” And this may make it easy in the near future for the powers of Europe to decide that the best place for the Papacy is outside of Italy. In such a case, where could headquarters of the church be found which would better suit the Papacy than in Jerusalem?