A CRISIS IN NEW YORK

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jan 11, 1916

A CRISIS IN NEW YORK

The New York edition of the American Issue for December 11, 1915, states: "We are tending toward a Sunday crisis in New York City on the liquor question,—a crisis that, to a degree, involves the state. It is a crisis in which somebody will probably get hurt, politically, if the issue fail of an honest facing. The state law demands that saloons be closed on Sunday. The city administration nullifies that law in the face of all decency. Solemn oaths are thrown to the winds, police authorities usurp the office of legislation, and a statute is made a ridiculous travesty. Honest men know that this is anarchy. Thinking men know that it is breeding lawlessness of every kind. Intelligent men know that it lets riotously free the principal begetter of every sort of city hell. Patriots are determined that it must and shall stop."

All truly Christian people are in favor of closing the saloons every day in the week; and besides, there are also thousands of people who are not professing Christians, who are equally anxious to have the saloon nuisance blotted from the land. But there is no valid reason that can be offered as to why the saloons should be closed on Sunday any more than on other days of the week. The religious sentiment that clings to Sunday is the underlying cause for seeking the closing of saloons on that day. This last statement may be protested; but if the reader will carefully reflect upon the subject, he will doubtless reach the conclusion that the truth has been stated. The paper from which the foregoing is quoted shows this in the following statement:

"Neither law-flouting officials nor roaring tumults of rummies will count for anything when it comes to effort at changing the mind of saloon-hating, Sunday-observing up-state people on the question of Sunday saloons. There are so many districts which would politically tar and feather a representative who should vote to legalize Sunday saloons in New York City that such an outcome is impossible."