Dr. Tufts on Sunday by Walter Owen

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jul 9, 1912

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 39, No. 26.

Dr. Tufts on Sunday

By Walter Owen

(By Walter Owen in Colton Daily "Courier" of June 8)

DR. G. L. TUFTS, of the Lord's Day Alliance, and the Pacific Coast secretary of the International Reform Bureau, came to Colton Sunday afternoon to deliver an address on the proposed Sunday law for California.

Dr. Tufts has been doing that kind of work on the coast for several years, and led the movement at the last legislature for a California Sunday law.

The present campaign is designed to secure the same kind of a statute, by means of the initiative, and the doctor and his colaborers are seeking to secure 31,000 names of voters on a petition to have the proposed legislation placed on the ballot this fall.

It will be noted that Dr. Tufts pursues his ordinary vocation on Sunday, tho he insists that nobody else shall have the privilege. He even uses the trains of a grinding seven day corporation on that day, and thus himself helps to oppress the train men who "never have a day off." The doctor reminds one very much of the man who "left off reforming himself, and went to reforming the nation."

In his address at the Methodist church last night, Mr. Tufts denied that the proposed Sunday law is a religious measure, and declared it had nothing to do with a union of church and state, tho in his prayer just a few minutes before, he pleaded with the Lord to help the people keep Sunday as a holy day, and not as a holiday.

He also quoted favorably from an eminent Frenchman, who declared that there can be no religion without the Sabbath.

The logic of that is, unquestionably, that the enforcement of the Sabbath is the enforcement of religion.

As an introduction to his remarks, the doctor read from the Scriptures the admonition to the princes of Judah to bring no burden into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. Wonder how the reverend gentleman would have got into Colton with his luggage yesterday if that kind of a law were enforced here.

According to the reformer, California is almost the worst state in the Union, because it has no Sunday law.

I haven't the statistics, but the veracity of that statement is doubted. The doctor quoted no figures for his assertion, and it is pretty safe to assume that this state does not compare unfavorably with others. In fact a statement in Dr. Craft's book, "The Sabbath for Man," in answer to the question, "Where have you seen the best Sabbath observance?" answered, "Among the Christian people of California."

There is a law in this state now which makes it illegal for any employer of labor to cause his employees to work more than six days in seven. To be sure it is not enforced, but neither was the Sunday law of California a number of years ago. The San Francisco Examiner said of that statute, just before its repeal in 1882: "The law is inoperative, and its repeal would only lop off a dead branch from the tree of legislation. Sunday would be just what it is now." And that was true.

It is a fact that several hundred people were arrested, but juries absolutely refused to convict, and the law was a dead letter.

It is true that employees are often worked too long hours and too many days in succession, but there is no record that any Sunday law ever helped matters any. They have been tried in all the Eastern states and Southern states, but have absolutely failed to help labor conditions, tho they have put a good many honest people in jail, notwithstanding exemption clauses, of which Mr. Tufts makes so much.

The gist of the whole matter is that Sunday laws are wrong. They are religious, and their enforcement is the enforcement of religion. In fact many of the Sunday law advocates make no bones of its being a religious statute. Jonathan Edwards, one of the leaders in the movement, has said, "We want state and religion, and we are going to have it." Another leader of the movement, in the organ of the National Reform movement, the Christian Statesman, says, "To be perfectly plain, I believe that the existence of a Christian constitution would disfranchise every logically consistent infidel."

Dr. Tufts is working toward that end. He belongs with the people who are seeking union of church and state, or of religion and state, which is the same thing; and the mild Sunday law he is now proposing, is only to establish a religious precedent in political affairs.