Post-Office Sunday-Closing Law
By S. B. HORTON
Criticized by First Assistant Postmaster-General—Early Congresses Grappled with the Subject—Un-American and Wrong to Settle Religious Controversy by Civil Law
THE law prohibiting the opening of post-offices and the delivery of mail on Sunday has added largely to the cost of the postal service, and materially lessens its efficiency, according to the annual report of Daniel C. Roper, first assistant postmaster-general, recently presented to Postmaster-General Burleson. One year's trial of the law has compelled the post-office department to coincide with the views of earlier Congresses which had the subject of Sunday closing of offices under consideration, that such regulation should be referred to the department to deal with according to the judgment of its officials. It will be remembered that on May 16, 1911, Representative Mann, of Illinois, introduced a bill (H. R. 9,433) "for the observance of Sunday in post-offices." The Religious Liberty Association of Washington, D. C., and others, inaugurated a campaign against the passage of the measure, and applied for a hearing. The committee to whom the bill was referred did not bring it up for consideration; but when the post-office appropriation bill was reported to the House, Mr. Mann moved an amendment to that measure, inserting his bill as a "rider," which went through, but not without protest from several members. Upon its reaching the Senate, protestants requested an opportunity, through a hearing, to point out reasons why the "rider" above referred to should be struck from the appropriation bill, but without avail. The Senate Post-office Committee, in reporting the bill favorably (Report No. 955, July 23, 1912), gave as one reason why the same should be passed, that— "It has been suggested by some that the provision be changed so as to permit the delivery of mail for one hour or for delivery of mail through boxes on Sunday, but on a moment's reflection it will be readily apparent that the delivery of any portion of the mail for any portion of the day necessitates handling and distributing the entire mail, and, consequently, the employment of a considerable number of clerks, thus defeating the purpose to be accomplished." In other words, the legislation was in the interest of economy to the service and rest to the employees. But according to the report of the first assistant postmaster-general, the legislation has done neither. On this point he says: "The enforcement of this law, particularly the latter clause, not only adds largely to the cost of the service but materially lessens its efficiency. Mails are received and despatched at practically all first- and second-class offices on Sundays, and during certain hours this necessitates the employment of at least a part of the force. Under this law these employees must be granted compensatory time on one of the six succeeding days. . . . The granting of compensatory time to these employees during the succeeding week when the condition of the work urgently demands their presence and to employ inexperienced substitutes in their places results in a serious impairment of the force. "The department believes it would be in the interest of both the service and the employees to amend the law so as to provide for the granting of compensatory time for Sunday work when the employees can be most conveniently excused from duty."—Report for the Year Ended June 30, 1913, page 14. FIRST CONGRESSIONAL ACT OF ITS KIND
The law in question is the first favorable response by our national legislature to demands for Sunday observance by civil enactment which began to be made soon after the organization of the government. PREVIOUS ATTEMPTS AT SUNDAY LEGISLATION
On January 4, 1811, a petition was presented to the eleventh Congress by the Synod of Pittsburg, asking for compulsory closing of the postal service on Sunday. This petition was referred to Postmaster-General Gideon Granger, who reported back that— "From the peculiar phraseology of the ninth section of said act (act of April 30, 1810), it is doubted whether he be warranted by law in limiting the right of the citizens to demand their letters to one hour on the sabbath." Postmaster-General R. J. Meigs, Jr., reporting January 16, 1815, to the thirteenth Congress, on a similar petition, said among other things: "The usage of transporting the mails on the sabbath is coeval with the Constitution of the United States, and a prohibition of that usage will be first considered." Other postmasters-general held the same views. WARNINGS OF RELIGIOUS DESPOTISM
Though the principles involved in Sunday legislation were evidently recognized in our early history, the subject was more fully set forth in the twentieth and the twenty-first Congress, when faithful warnings against lawmaking of this character were sounded by patriotic statesmen. And these warnings were emphasized by a well-informed citizenship outside the halls of Congress. Reporting adversely on Sunday-closing petitions referred to it, the United States Senate Committee of the first-mentioned Congress, of which Col. Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky, was chairman and author of the report, commented as follows on the principles involved: "It should, however, be kept in mind that the proper object of government is to protect all persons in the enjoyment of their religious as well as civil rights, and not to determine for any whether they shall esteem one day above another, or esteem all days alike holy. . . . It is the opinion of the committee that the subject should be regarded simply as a question of expediency, irrespective of its religious bearing. Congress has never legislated upon the subject. It rests, as it has ever done, in the legal discretion of the postmaster-general. . . . Let the national legislature once perform an act which involves the decision of a religious controversy (which is in fact contemplated in Sunday laws), and it will have passed its legitimate bounds. The precedent will then be established, and the foundation laid, for the usurpation of the divine prerogative in this country which has been the desolating scourge to the fairest portions of the Old World."—"American State Papers." The twenty-first Congress had the same question before it, and the House Committee on Post-offices and Post-roads made substantially the same comment on the principles involved. Its report against enacting a Sunday observance law gave evidence that the committee was familiar with the views held by the founders of the republic. "It is perhaps fortunate," says the report, "for our country that the proposition should have been made at this early period, while the spirit of the Revolution yet exists in full vigor." ("American State Papers.") ESTABLISHED PRINCIPLES IGNORED
The sixty-second Congress gave little or no weight to the views of its patriotic ancestors, or it would have refused to enter the forbidden path of Sunday legislation. In the present post-office closing law, it not only repudiated the great American principle of absolute separation of church and state, but it has involved the post-office service in a question of economics, and made necessary the pertinent strictures suggested by the report of the first assistant postmaster-general. The thing for Congress to do is to repeal the statute compelling the post-office to shut down on Sunday, and to keep its hands off this kind of unconstitutional and un-American legislation.