LABOR SUPPORTS CHURCH FOR SUNDAY ENFORCEMENT.
A SIGNIFICANT development of recent years has been the appearance of a clerical delegate in the central labor councils of many of the cities of the country. The Presbyterian Church has initiated this innovation for "getting next" to organized labor, and so far it is confined almost entirely to that church, but it is very likely to extend to other churches. In view of the increasing activity of trades-unionists for a compulsory weekly rest-day, and of the clergy for compulsory "Sabbath" observance, it has not been difficult to foresee what would be one of the first and foremost objects for the promotion of which this affiliation and cooperation of the church and organized labor would be employed. And what has been expected in the matter by students of the compulsory rest-day Sabbath movement is beginning to appear. One of the cities in which a clerical delegate sits in the central labor council is Brooklyn, N. Y., and at the meeting of the Brooklyn Central Labor Union, on Sunday, November 11, "the Rev. Warren H. Wilson, fraternal delegate from the Brooklyn Presbytery, who said he had been instructed to do so by a committee representing in the largest sense every minister in Brooklyn," appealed to the body for its cooperation with the clergymen of Brooklyn in their movement for the suppression of Sunday theaters, making the somewhat remarkable declarations that "ORGANIZED LABOR, and not the organized church, is the TRUE CHAMPION OF SABBATH OBSERVANCE," and "religion does not need a Sabbath, and the Sabbath was not established for worship, but labor does need it, and the Sabbath has been kept thru the centuries in the interests of labor." After speeches by union delegates, which "demonstrated that they were not averse to going on record in favor of the closing of theaters on Sunday, but wanted to go further," a resolution was adopted declaring that "the Central Labor Union demands the enforcement of the Sunday laws, especially as to Sunday theaters and retail stores, and we pledge our cooperation to the ministerial committee on Sunday closing, and that a copy of this resolution be sent to the Deputy Commissioner of Police of Brooklyn." The demand for the enforcement of the Sunday laws, especially with reference to retail stores as well as theaters, was made because in the discussion following Rev. Wilson's appeal, delegates urged that this be done. In the course of the discussion, which "was interesting," one delegate "said that a law should be passed forbidding the payment of wages on Saturday, for the reason that men who were paid on Saturday had no time in which to make their purchases except on Sunday. That was one reason why shops were open on that day." In reporting the action of the union, the "Brooklyn Eagle" said that "as a matter of fact, organized labor has always opposed Sunday labor, and has put a tax on the employer who desired the services of his workmen on the first day of the week, by insisting that double wages must be paid for services on that day." But this form of opposing Sunday labor is by no means the same thing as that of "the enforcement of the Sunday laws." After the meeting, Rev. Wilson informed a reporter "that he had visited the Brooklyn Actors Union and the Stage Employees Union in the interests of Sunday closing, and had been courteously received. Most of the members at the meetings were in favor of closing on that day of the week. Altho the stage employees receive double pay for the work, one of the officers said he would rather forego it than work on Sunday." In his appeal to the Central Labor Union, Rev. Wilson said that in their movement for the closing of the theaters on Sunday the ministers "were animated not by doctrinal reasons, which never long held them together on Sunday-closing, but by moral and industrial facts. The moral fact is that the theater which breaks the law on Sunday presents a baser and more degrading exhibition, and that on that day it is attended very largely by children and young people. The industrial reason is that the whole gospel of labor declares that the restriction of the hours of labor results in the lifting of the rate of wages. The labor gospel is eight hours for six days a week, and the action of the ministers is level with the purposes of organized labor and consistent with every principle cherished by the Central Labor Union. Organized labor, and not the organized church, is the true champion of Sabbath observance. Religion does not need a Sabbath, and the Sabbath was not established for worship; but labor does need it, and the Sabbath has been kept thru the centuries by Jews and Christians alike in the interests of labor. Sabbath-keeping was the first recognition of fixed hours of labor. Religion is inextinguishable, and in times of the greatest oppression religion still thrives; but the interests of labor are dependent upon, and may be deprived of, such privileges as a day of rest and shorter hours throuot the week." In this appeal the "fraternal delegate" from the Brooklyn Presbytery went far in his bid for the support of organized labor in behalf of Sunday enforcement—so far, in fact, that he virtually surrendered and demolished the very thing for which he and the church stand in this matter and in behalf of which his appeal was inspired—the theological and dogmatic Sabbath. Even in their eagerness for the cooperation and support of organized labor in the maintenance and enforcement of the "sabbath," the clergy should be careful that they do not overreach themselves and thrust the deadly blade, even of fact, beneath the fifth rib of the very institution they are seeking to maintain and enforce.