p. 642 | SUNDAY AND THE FAIR by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 21, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 41.

"SUNDAY AND THE FAIR."

By Editor

UNDER the above heading the Examiner of July 30 has the following editorial on the efforts already making for the closing of the proposed Midwinter Fair in San Francisco. We commend its good sense, especially the portions italicized, to our readers:—

In the controversy between the Presbyterian ministers and the Christian Endeavorers as to which body is entitled to the honor of having first demanded a Sunday-closing rule for the Midwinter Exposition, we should be inclined to award the prize, on general principles, to the Endeavorers. They are young and active, and they have taken the idea of suppressing all elevating and instructing recreations on the first day of the week as their peculiar specialty. They are opposed to Sunday newspapers and Sunday mails, and no doubt nothing would please them better than to see Golden Gate Park surrounded by a high iron fence, as the Botanical Garden at Washington is, with every opening tightly closed from sunset on Saturday evening until after breakfast on Monday morning.

But our friends of the Christian Endeavor Society are not quite as careful as they should be to make all their statements strictly accurate. For instance, in their Alameda County resolutions they call upon all "law-abiding citizens of the Pacific Coast" to see that the "Lord's day" is respected by closing the gates of the Fair. The plain implication here is that there is some law in California prescribing a certain mode of observing the "Lord's day." The truth is, as our Endeavorer friends doubtless know, if they stop to think, that there is no such law in this State, and, furthermore, that the one which formerly existed was repealed in obedience to the mandate of a popular majority of 23,000. Any action not criminal in itself is lawful on Sunday, just as on any other day. Moreover, when we did have a Sunday law, it was not one for the observance of the "Lord's day," and its advocates were careful not to defend it on any such ground. It was a law for the protection of a civil day of rest, and even that was decided by the people to be something for the judgment of the individual, and not for legislative interference.

Our esteemed contemporary, the Pacific Endeavorer, expresses the hope that "the result of the opening of the World's Fair in Chicago will demonstrate that our Fair cannot be a success on that day." We fear that no such limitation is possible. San Francisco is not Chicago, nor any other city but itself. Our people are accustomed to consider Sunday their chief day of recreation. What Eastern people may or may not do does not concern us. The Park is thronged every Sunday with families, who go there to enjoy the air and hear the music. There is probably not one of these thousands who would hesitate to go a few steps farther and enter the Fair if it were open. Eighteen thousand people have crowded themselves into the baseball grounds on Sunday. Is it likely that they would scrupulously refrain from looking at an international exposition? The trains and boats take as many excursionists into the country every Sunday as would be likely to visit the Fair on any day of the week.

The two great obstacles to successful Sunday opening in Chicago were the contract with the government, whose repudiation carried the stigma of bad faith, and the failure of the management to give as good a display on Sundays as on week days. People to whom fifty cents meant a good deal did not care to pay a full admission fee for half a show, especially when they were given a chance to see everything at night.

The Pacific Endeavorer adds that "it is hoped that the people of California will begin in the right way to prevent this violation of the laws of God and our fair land." There is the same misconception here that we have noted in the case of the Alameda County resolutions,—there is no "law of our fair land" that would be violated by opening the gates of the Midwinter Fair on Sundays, and if there be any such "law of God," no secular tribunal has been given jurisdiction to enforce it.

The people of California have won a proud distinction among the inhabitants of less-favored parts of the world for their proficiency in the gentle art of minding their own business. Each goes [or is allowed to go, so far as man is concerned] to heaven in his own way. One pays a clergyman to instruct him in righteousness, another gets his sermon from the birds and trees, another from the Sunday newspapers. All dwell together in harmony and brotherly love. We hope that this happy state of things may continue to prevail undisturbed.