At the sixty-fifth anniversary of the Pennsylvania Sabbath Association, held in Philadelphia, December 18, the secretary reported that there were forty-seven labor unions in that state, and more than eight hundred in the United States that have declared for a Sabbath rest day, and that a very large percentage of the shop-keepers in the state who open their places of business on Sunday would close them if their competitors in trade would do so. Several years ago this journal predicted that trades-unionism would eventually become an influential factor in the enforcement of Sunday-law intolerance.
Concerning this report of the secretary, the Sabbath Recorder, a Seventh-day Baptist paper, says that it "reveals a prominent influence in Pennsylvania and elsewhere for the enforcement of the Sunday law. The issue is purely selfish and the Sunday law is invoked in order that men may not lose their profits upon business that is secured by their competitors on Sunday. This reduces the question from the higher ground of Sabbath-keeping to a very low standard, and degrades a law that claims to be in the interests of the highest morality and of religion to a place where it is used as a club over the heads of business competitors."
The Recorder further quotes from a Harrisburg correspondent of the Philadelphia Ledger regarding the prospect of a sharp contest on the Sunday-law question at the coming session of the Legislature. This correspondent says:
With the agitation that is going on for the repeal of the Blue Laws, there is considerable speculation as to how the Governor in his message will treat the proposition. Regardless of what he may say on the subject, it seems almost a certainty that the rigid Sunday law will be wiped off the statute books by the Legislature, unless the Sabbatarians shall head a stronger opposition than has been waged in recent years to any proposed legislation.