p. 7 | AS MIGHT BE EXPECTED by G.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Apr 5, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 14.

AS MIGHT BE EXPECTED.

By G.

THE National Reform organ, published at Pittsburg, tells us that "a corrupt oligarchy is ruling Pennsylvania." Then it gives some details of the manner in which the "corrupt oligarchy," through a few leading spirits in both houses of the Legislature, manage to control the people's representatives, and thus control the state.

Now Pennsylvania has had on the statute books, for more than a hundred years, a Sunday law than which none in the union is more stringent. Pennsylvania is also the home of the National Reform Association, one of whose special aims has been Sunday-law enforcement. Here we have a striking illustration of the fact that stringent Sunday laws and their persistent enforcement do not beget honesty in state government.

It also illustrates that Sunday closing does not beget temperance sentiment; for the organ above quoted cites the assurance of the "oligarchy" that controls the state, that "no local option bill will be allowed to pass at this session." And this assurance was so sure, that a fund of $800,000, raised by the liquor interest to defeat a local option measure, was deemed unnecessary for that purpose, and was transferred to another political fund. The people's representatives didn't need to be bought on the score of defeating local option.

Nor is such a condition strange in a state where the professed Christian people extensively encourage a system of political "reform" by means of enforced religious dogma. Altho this principle is upheld by professed Protestants, it is the leading polity of Rome, and never can succeed in bringing about either moral or political reform. Both Romanists and professed Protestants have demonstrated this problem over and over in many countries. It is high time that a professedly progressive people should have the lesson well learned. The condition complained of by our National Reform contemporary is not at all surprising; the surprise is, that such medieval methods of "reform" should still be pursued under the guise of Christianity at this late date.