SINCE Sunday rest enforcement was quelled in the city of Portland, Oregon, and in the entire county of Multnomah, through the judicial skill of Judge Gantenbein, there have been but few arrests elsewhere in the state.
Almost all the daily papers in the state are editorially opposed to the Sunday blue law enforcement. The Portland Telegram, January 10, 1916, speaking editorially, said:
"It is apparent to most people that there are two motives which urge the enforcement of this law,— spite, and a certain fanaticism that is sincere enough in its intent to bring about good through strait-laced conduct and by compulsion if necessary. The motive of spite is wholly unworthy, and the other motive in its extreme expression is without reason.
"The law itself is inequitable. Its enforcement would work a hardship without public or private benefit; and it is a safe and reasonable conclusion that the people of Oregon do not want and will not vote for its enforcement."
Under date of March 8, 1916, the Newport Independent Enterprise said in part:
"Last Saturday M. N. Anderson, of Toledo, was arrested and tried before Justice Collins for violating the provisions of the Sunday blue law. A jury . . . found the defendant guilty. He was fined five dollars and the cost of the case.
"Mr. Anderson has a confectionery and ice cream parlor in Toledo; and if this prosecution indicates the policy that Mr. Stewart [district attorney] is going to follow in Lincoln County, the sooner that much talked of recall petition is circulated, the better."
Concealed Religious Persecution
THERE are a few sections of the state where the mutterings of the dragonic spirit are heard and recognized, under color of civil prosecution, when in reality it is Biblically known that in every such case of prosecution there lies concealed in the motive the spirit of religious persecution.
Arrested for Selling Pork and Beans
L. J. GRAY, of Lebanon, Linn County, proprietor of a bakery, was arrested March 16 for selling a can of pork and beans. The case was filed in the circuit court, and tried before Judge Galloway March 24. He placed a temporary injunction against the further enforcement of the 1865 law, it being a revision of the 1854 Sunday blue law of territorial origin. The injunction was at once served on District Attorney Hill and Sheriff Bodine.
As a result of these and other prosecutions, the Independent Grocers have initiated a bill to repeal the Oregon Sunday law. This bill has been filed with the secretary of state, and is placed on the November ballot.
A conference of the United Evangelical Church held in Portland, Oregon, is reported by the Oregonian of April 9, 1916, as follows:
"Report of the committee on moral reform indorsing the proposed one-rest-day-in-seven law was submitted yesterday to the Oregon Conference of the United Evangelical Church. The conference declined to give the measure unequivocal indorsement, but did indorse it as a 'civic measure,' but not as a religious propaganda, for the reason that the present measure 'compromises with theaters and business institutions.'"
"The motion to indorse the proposed rest day law met with opposition from Rev. C. C. Poling, whose name is signed to the law, Rev. S. S. Mummey, and others of the conference, all of whom spoke against direct indorsement.
"Mr. Poling said that his name was used on the measure without his consent, and that he did not approve of the measure entirely. Rev. Mr. Mummey said the proposed law might leave conditions even worse than at present."
Admittedly Religious
THIS body of ministers frankly admits the religious feature of the one-day (Sunday)-rest-in-seven initiative petition which was to have been submitted to the voters of the state of Oregon in the November election. Evidently, however, it did not secure a sufficient number of signatures to meet the requirement of the law, hence it will not appear on the ballot. Of course, conditions would have been worse than at present had this proposed bill become a law.
"Rev. A. A. Winter and Rev. J. A. Goode made strong pleas for the indorsement of the measure as the best that could be framed and hoped for at the present, but not all that was desired."
It is an open secret that the proposed Sunday closing law does not contain all that its advocates desire. Their ideal is that every man be forced to rest on that day after their sectarian idea, even to the extent that not even a daily newspaper be bought or sold on Sunday; that fishing, hunting, baseball, theaters, shows, and all other games and places of amusement, soda fountains, and ice cream stands be closed on that day. But the existing law does not contain all these requirements.
Not a Square Front
THE inconsistency of the Sunday law advocates could not be more clearly shown than by a comparison of statements made by their superintendent, the Rev. G. L. Tufts, through the secular and the religious press. Addressing the general public relative to his proposed initiative bill, he declared in the Oregonian of January 30, 1916, "The proposed law makes no religious requirements." Writing in the Pacific Christian Advocate of July 5, 1916, to the church people, he says: "But there is little public conscience as to the sacred character of the day. A law of this kind should be based upon public conviction that Sunday is a divine institution."
Deny it all they will, a Sunday law is in the interest of sectarian religion, and in its last analysis, will force all classes of men to rest on Sunday or suffer the penalties attached thereto.
Sunday legislation can have nothing whatsoever to do with one's civilization. A man who sells pop corn, conducts an ice cream parlor or a soda stand, sells newspapers, plays baseball, or takes an automobile ride with his family on the great Columbia Highway, on Sunday, is just as civilized as he would be if he were forced to go to church and play the pipe organ, lead the choir, or sit in the front pew, on that day.
Can Neither Work nor Play
DR. JAMES McGRAW, of Los Angeles, California, speaking of the religious enforcement of Sunday, says, "I will say that the Sabbath shall be sanctified by rest on that day from all labor and pleasure, such as is engaged in on other days of the week, a holy day, given to the worship of Almighty God." With such an utterance as this from their national secretary, there can be no longer a question relative to the religious character of such law.
Even though a law exempts those who rest regularly on another day, it is none the less oppressive to those who do not believe in resting regularly on any day of the week. If the state has a divine right so to bind one citizen one day in each week that he cannot work to provide for his daily sustenance, it has the same right to force all its citizens to rest six days each week if it should so choose. But for the state to assume thus to trench upon the rights of its citizens is for it to exceed the limits of its ordained boundary lines.
Would prohibit all fishing on Sundays
While the existing Sunday law of Oregon does not exempt those who observe another day from any obligation thereto, yet the proposed initiative bill did make such concession. Since all the energies of the framers of this584
Echoes of the Dragon's Voice
(Continued from page 7)
initiative bill are now bent toward the defeat of Senator Kellaher's repeal bill, and they announce that if successful in this undertaking, they will then ask the legislature to amend the present law so as to make it up-to-date in every way, it is reasonable to suppose that some such exemption will be thrown as a sop to those who they fear would oppose their efforts. But if it were a good law, no exemptions would be necessary. Why should the state have a bad law? Every Oregonian should vote for its repeal. God's moral law of Ten Commandments contains no class exemptions from obedience thereto; and "the law of the Lord is perfect," and perfection cannot be repealed.
Could Repeal the Exemptions
THE state that makes exemptions may repeal them at will. If any state, or the District of Columbia, has the right to pass a Sunday bill, and thus enact it into law, and attach a penalty thereto for the least violation thereof, and exempt such persons as rest "regularly and conscientiously" on another day of the week than Sunday, and further exempt such persons as may be engaged in specified lines of trade, or theatrical, baseball, polo, cricket, or other similar amusements, it could repeal such exemptions at its pleasure. Should the exemptions be repealed, the law would bind all classes of citizens to the strictest obedience to the Puritan Sunday blue law, even though they believed not in the day, nor even in religion. Such legislation is not that of the republic for which "Old Glory" stands.
The first Sunday law ever enacted had its origin in the interest of pagan religion, being enacted by the Roman emperor Constantine, in the year A.D. 321. It contained exemptions similar to those of the proposed Sunday rest law of to-day. If that religious system had been of God, it would have possessed the power to save men from sin. Hence all must admit that it would not have adulterated its purity by forming an alliance with the state, which cannot possibly do more than punish men for crime, they having still to account for sin to God.
Forerunner of Persecution
IN the year 323 A.D., Constantine professed conversion, and united with the Christian church, and thus further injected into it his religio-civil ideas of religion by force. This religious legislation continued until all exemptions were ignored, and persecution and prosecution raged everywhere; and in the ministration of that system in its last analysis, the Old World was stained with the life-blood of some one hundred million men who were denied their natural right to choose their kind of religion in harmony with individual conscience.
The evil result of the union of the church and the state in that day was foretold by Christ, and chronicled in Matt. 24: 21, 22: "For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened."
The history of that power is recorded in Rev. 13: 1-10, and it is by the All-Seeing One denominated "the beast," because of its oppressive character. Its character was manifest in its dealings with the consciences and religious convictions of men by force.
'Wondered After the Beast'
THAT union of church and state power was to be a world power. "And all the world wondered after the beast. . . . And they worshiped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?" Rev. 13: 3, 4. And when it came, it was a world union of church and state power. That power was false Catholicism.
History is now repeating itself. There is an unsatisfied craving, on the part of would-be Protestant religious sects, to form a union with the state, and enforce sectarian ideas of religion by civil law. The work has already begun; and when it is completed — the church and the state having then entered into unholy wedlock, the church to define the tenets of religious belief, and the state to enforce its creed — then we will have an image to the beast. And that image — false Protestantism united with the state — will demand obedience to church tenets, and enforce its demands by fine and imprisonment.
This system of forced Sunday closing, in its final analysis, will be the crowning act in the union of church and state in our day, and constitute the image to the beast, a living likeness, vividly described in Revelation, chapters 13 and 14. Read them.
We are herein prophetically informed that this system of religious legislation will contain not only the penalty of fine and imprisonment for the violation of religio-civil rest enforcement law, but that the death penalty will finally be attached to the law.
Reader, be not affiliated with the religious alliance that brings about the civil enactment and enforcement of such a law; for God's "wrath" therefore is sure to follow. Rev. 14: 9-11.
