p. 9 | NOT A CALIFORNIA NEED by William Newton Glenn

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Jan 30, 1907

NOT A CALIFORNIA NEED.

By William Newton Glenn

(By the late William Newton Glenn, written a few days before his death, Dec. 1, 1906.)

I N a recent sermon, a Fresno clergyman gave utterance to the following sentiment:

"One of California's greatest needs to-day is a Sunday law. We need it to save the commonwealth from utter moral decay, if not overthrow. Witness the awful moral condition of her chief metropolis. Corruption and crime rampant, moral senses dead, and the whole State under the blight of the curse. But aside from this general need, the man most interested in a rest day is the man who toils. He needs it, as we have already seen, for the same reason that every other man needs it, and for this additional reason: That he may recuperate his wasted physical energies, that his life of service may be prolonged to himself and to the State. The commonwealth of California owes it to itself to enact a law that will guarantee to every man one day's rest in seven, that the best interests of the State may be conserved. How may such a law be secured? Largely, as it seems to me, through two channels—the Church and the Labor unions, not ignoring, of course, or making secondary the newspapers and the influence of the general public."

As to the "awful moral condition" of California's "chief metropolis," we ask, What about the moral condition of great cities where there are Sunday laws? There is nothing in San Francisco, even in this most unsavory time, that has not been experienced in Chicago. That city has experienced its great upheavals of crime—social and political—that stirred its people from center to circumference. At times they have arisen and attempted to throw off the spell, and to this end evil-doers have been punished, and crime has been compelled to hide its head for a moment. They have a Sunday law in Illinois, but whatever of reform has been periodically enforced has been by vigorous application of civil law, rather than through the influence of the Sunday law. Has the Sunday law done for Chicago what it is claimed such a law will do for San Francisco? —Hardly. What has it done? A few years ago it put some honest, industrious, Christian men in prison for doing innocent work in the country on Sunday, and that in spite of an exemption clause; but we have no evidence that moral conditions are generally any better throughout Illinois than in California.

And what of New York and Pittsburg with their strenuous Sunday law? The greater part of the laboring men in California do not now work on Sunday, and no one can compel any to work; yet complaint is made by certain zealous classes because they choose to take recreation in their own way. The pleasure excursion is a common mode of diversion; also hunting and fishing in the seasons for such pastimes; and many people go to church. It is not enough, however, that men do not work. Altho the plea of needed rest and recreation is made the pretext for a general Sunday law, that is not what is wanted. The men who are urging such a law want also to stop the recreation. They have not enough of the Spirit in their churches to draw the people as they would like, and it is desired to make conditions such that the people will not have anything else they can do to while away the idle hours.

Nor would the votaries of a Sunday law be satisfied with their own plea for a statute "that will guarantee to every one one day's rest in seven," unless that rest be on Sunday. However much they pretend to believe such a law necessary, not one of them would agree to such a general rest day on Monday or Wednesday, or on any other day but Sunday. The rest is not the point with them, notwithstanding the pretense to that effect. The aim is to compel everybody to observe Sunday. This is proved at every turn of the wheel.

But, according to sentiment quoted at the beginning of this article, the hope of the Church in this matter is hanging largely on the cooperation of the labor unions. This is another case of the Church yoking up with an institution of the world in order to have its tenets enforced upon those who do not accept them willingly. The labor unions will not federate with the Church unless those churchmen who make the bargain concede support to the principle of unionism and agree to maintain the union cause. The unions have a purpose in maintaining the Sunday-law clause, and it is not heart concern for the welfare of laboring men in general.

For the great majority of laborers are not in unions, excepting in the large cities. Union men would, of course, prefer to see this majority forced into the union if possible, in some cases even denying the privilege of work any day if they refused. By siding with the churchmen in this matter, these radical ones hope to secure for the non-union man the antagonism of the Church. And that is where the Church places herself when she federates with one of two antagonistic classes for any purpose whatever. The Church will hardly win the large non-union laboring class to Christ by confederating with their common enemy, nor will she gain the respect of the best union men. The laboring union forces must see in the Sunday law something advantageous to them in the labor struggle, or they would not throw their influence in that direction.

The Sunday law is not a friend to anyone; it is a delusion even to advocates. It is not one of California's needs in any sense. California's greatest need is men, honest, capable men, to execute the right laws in a right manner which she already has on her statute book, and which amply protect the one man in his recreation or labor, and the other in his worship, on all days.