WANTON RECKLESSNESS

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, Cal. · Nov 21, 1906

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 32, No. 45.

WANTON RECKLESSNESS.

WOULD they do as much to save life, to help the poor, to save a soul, as to lower the "record" of a previous auto race! These questions ought to come home to our reckless racers, who risk their own life and that of many others in the great reckless races being held more and more frequently. Here is a New York paper's account of an incident in the Vanderbilt race in the first week in October:

"Hedged in by the crowd and unable to escape from in front of Elliott F. Shepard's 130-horse power Hotchkiss racing auto, Curt L. Gruner, of No. 158 Hope Avenue, Passaic, N. J., was struck by the blunt hood and dashed twenty feet along the Vanderbilt Cup course yesterday morning during the running of the race.

"The accident occurred on Shepard's sixth lap when he had arrived a short distance above Krug's Corner on Jericho Turnpike, at Mineola. Nearly every bone in Gruner's body was broken, his skull was crushed, and he died instantly. In its flight the body hit a woman, knocking her twenty feet along the road. Her clothing was drenched with blood, and the terrifying sight bereft her of reason. Screaming and pulling at her hair, she ran away from the scene over the level fields. Friends followed and took her to a physician.

"It was impossible for the deputy sheriffs to control the mob of 30,000 spectators that tried to get to the scene. The crowd swarmed on to the course, and the racers that followed Shepard flashed into sight before the men and women could be driven back. Unable to check their speed, the racers bore down on the crowd at sixty miles an hour.

"The flagman waved the yellow danger signals frantically in an endeavor to halt the racers, but it was too late. With clubs and their fists, the deputies and flagmen fought back the crowd until a narrow opening was made, and through this perilous lane the daring drivers piloted their cars at sixty miles an hour or more.

"This is the second victim of Shepard's fast driving. He ran down and killed a little girl in France over a year ago, was tried and sentenced to prison for three months. The case was bitterly fought in court, and he was eventually let off on the payment of a fine and a sum of money to the victim's family."

"SABBATH" AGITATION IN NEW YORK.

THE cause of enforced Sunday observance has received considerable attention in Elmira, N. Y., through the annual meeting of the State Sabbath Association, which was held October 28-31. The association represents fourteen denominations, and the occasion was the sixteenth anniversary of the organization, which is an auxiliary to the American Sabbath Union. The Elmira papers have given liberal notices and reports of religious liberty meetings held in the city at the same time by Elder John S. Wightman and his wife, Mrs. Lulu Wightman. The former is religious liberty secretary for the state of New York, and Mrs. Wightman is a well-known evangelist. Both the Gazette and Star gave quite full reports of her talks on religious liberty. A good supply of religious liberty literature was also circulated in the city. It was fitting that while the so-called Sabbath Association was disseminating its compulsory Sunday observance sophistry, the people should be given the truth as to what such a movement would mean if fully successful; namely, an entire change in the civil and religious character of our government.

The founders of this republic wisely omitted the principle of state-enforced religion, and the measure of liberty and material prosperity which the country has enjoyed is almost wholly due to this fact—to say nothing of the influence for religious liberty which it wielded in the Old World. But the success of the efforts to establish the principle of religious legislation—advocated by "sabbath" associations, the National Reform Association, and the Reform Bureau—will cause a radical reaction from fundamental principles. This fact has been amply demonstrated in the measure of success the movement has already attained. It is a time for the lovers of liberty to be on their guard. Politicians, especially candidates for public office, are coming to regard the movement as a political power to be reckoned with at the polls, and are therefore disposed to compromise and even to make pre-election pledges to favor politico-religious schemes.