Sunday Closing versus Temperance
Sunday Closing versus Temperance.—A correspondent says that the city council of New Ulm, Minn., has refused the request of the majority of the saloon-keepers of that city to enforce the Sunday-closing laws. Why such a request should come from that class of men is not stated, but the action of the council is to be commended. If the saloon-keepers want to close their own places, the council is surely not compelling them to keep open on Sunday; and if the request was to have legitimate business places closed on that day, the purpose could not have been a benevolent or unselfish one. The liquor traffic does not run in such lines. The fact that the Sunday-closing movement finds favor with saloon-keepers is evidence that there is something in it that is not in harmony with temperance. Such action as that above noted ought to forever settle the point, which we have long maintained, that enforced Sunday observance can not be reckoned as a temperance measure.