THE LOS ANGELES "TIMES" ON A "SANE SUNDAY."
By Editor
THE Los Angeles Times, which for years has posed as a champion for individual rights, for Americanism, has an editorial in its issue of the 16th ultimo entitled, "A Sane Sunday." That article belies its claims. It starts out by saying: "A number of things are happening again, concerning the manner in which the public shall be allowed to observe the first day of the week." Think, reader, of what is implied in that sentence. Who, pray, shall tell the "public" how the "public" shall observe the first day but the "public" itself, and that, too, as individuals? What right has any one to say how the "public" shall observe "the first day of the week" different from any other day of the week? It is a religious day, different in observance from other days, that is sought; for the Sunday is a religious day. But as religion is a matter lying wholly between the individual man and his God, no one has a shadow of right to usurp the place of God and to declare how man or the public shall observe the day. The Times then refers to the present revival of blue laws in Boston under which "a Boston man or woman dare scarcely more than breathe. It is made an offense to smoke on Sunday in a public place," etc. [Evidently the editor is a smoker.] Chicago is referred to as a place where men are seeking to throw off all restrictions. "What is wanted," says the Times, "is a straddle. The thing to be advocated is a sane Sunday for the people, and let the extremists on both sides make the best of it." But if Sunday observance is a matter of righteousness, there can be no "straddle," no compromise, in righteousness. More than this, it would be an utter impossibility to frame a law which would not be taken advantage of on the one side or the other; and, as the Sacramento Union truly remarks, such a law would settle no problem while it would create twenty. But whose law would be the "sane" law? Would it be Massachusetts's law? Our Puritan friends would doubtless claim that their law was the type at least of the only sane Sunday law which was effective. Even now their demand is that it be made more stringent. Our Catholic friends would contend that the only sane Sunday law is one requiring attendance at mass in the forenoon, with the afternoon given up to ordinary pleasure. Those who are contending for a Sunday-law, who believe in it enough to work for it, are those who demand the Puritan or Scotch Sunday. All others, like the Times, are endeavoring to steer their compromise craft between Scylla and Charybdis to keep their feet on both sides of the politico-religious Sunday-law fence. Will the editor of the Los Angeles Times frame for us a model, sane Sunday law? The Times thinks there should be "a wholesome respect for the opinion of the majority." Nonsense. Such a thought is un-Christian, un-American. No man is8bound to respect the opinions of others tho he stand alone. If the Times principle be true, Jesus ought to have respected the opinion of the Jews; for they were greatly in the majority. He could thus have saved Himself from crucifixion. Martin Luther might thus have lived and died a monk in the Catholic fold. The men of 1776 need not have fought the war of the Revolution. Let us respect men, not opinions, unless in our conviction their opinions are worthy of respect. But tho their opinions in our judgment are not entitled to respect, the men themselves are; they should be respected notwithstanding their views. "Honor all men." Protect the individual in his inalienable right to disagree with us if he so elect. This is Americanism; this is Christianity. Well did George Bancroft, the historian, say of the fundamental law of this nation: "The Constitution establishes nothing that interferes with equality or individuality. It knows nothing of differences by descent or opinions of favored classes, or legalized religion, or the political power of property. It leaves the individual alongside the individual. . . . Religion was become avowedly the attribute of man and not of a corporation. . . . Vindicating the right of individuality even in religion, and in religion above all, the new nation dared to set the example of accepting in its relations to God the principle first divinely ordained in Judea."—"Hist. of the Const., Bk. V, Chap. 1." Under these principles there is no room for Sabbath laws of any kind, and it is political and religious and suicidal insanity to enact and enforce them. As for respect for Christianity or the religion of the majority, it will never be won nor fostered by coercion or compulsion. Men's measure of respect will be proportionate to the moral effect of the religion upon those who profess it.