GROWTH OF SUNDAY INTOLERANCE.
THE most delusive feature of the Sunday-law principle is hidden in the exceptions; for the reason that most people who know the whole principle to be tyrannical and intolerant will withhold opposition if only the things in which they are interested are excepted. The man who accepts an exemption of his particular interest in lieu of prohibition of wrong virtually throws his influence in favor of the wrong; he really concedes that the whole principle is right, and that his exemption is a compromise of right. In other words, he accepts a bribe for his tacit approval of that which he knows to be unjust. On the other hand, it is a compromise of principle to grant the privilege of conducting enterprises conducive of evil under the protection of law, on condition that they be closed on Sunday. Yet nearly all observers of Sunday yield to this compromise; in fact, it is a small minority of them that ever ask any more even in respect to the saloon evil—that great hatchery of crime. But a certain proposition for exceptions to the Ohio Sunday law called forth the spirit of Sunday legislation, and its hold upon the people, in a way that made the proposition at least worth the while. During the last session of the Ohio Legislature a bill was introduced providing for an amendment to the Sunday law excepting from its penalty the baseball games and theatrical performances. The result was a defeat by a vote of eighty-four to eight. This was regarded, and no doubt correctly, as a fair expression of popular sentiment regarding the Sunday law as it is. It might even be regarded as an indication that even a more stringent one would be tolerated—with a little popular agitation of the question. The real spirit behind such legislation was manifested when the member who introduced the proposed amendment was not even allowed to discuss his bill before the house. This was carrying the spirit of intolerance well along toward the extreme, when a ''republican'' legislative body denies to one of its own members the right of free speech on a question of popular rights, and arbitrarily declares what men may not do on Sunday—solely because it is Sunday. The action, on the whole, was a deliberate step backward from the principle of civil and religious liberty which gave this republic its prestige among nations. When the fathers of our government founded a republic they, perhaps unwittingly, allowed the colonies to bring over their Sunday laws and incorporate them into their state statutes, and that seed of church-and-stateism has grown and spread its baleful influence until it has become a formidable menace to our most cherished institutions. And National Reformism and Church Federationism are making it a stepping-stone to the enthronement of a political church as a national dictator.