A RELIGIOUS MEASURE PROPOSED FOR CALIFORNIA
By J. O. C.
Much Involved in the Proposed Sunday Law—Not Master of Your Own Time if Proposed Legislation Carries—California Should Vote "No" on No. 45 at the November Election THIS bill, entitled "One Day of Rest in Seven," involves the reversal of God-given human rights, declared to be life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. To pass this bill means invasion of human rights, unjust discriminations, prejudicial espionage, religious bitterness, social upheaval, human enslavement. Happiness obtains only when one is permitted to use his days as best suits his judgment. When not thus free, liberty is restricted, and one is made a slave to outside dictation. LIFE ENJOYED UNDER TWO CHARTERS
Every human right in life was bestowed by the higher charter—the voice and direction of Jehovah in man's creation. The second and lower charter—civil government—was ordained by God simply for the protection of the rights already conferred by Him. This measure, known as the Barber's Sunday Bill, demands compulsory rest on Sunday from all honest toil, except the following: labor in the maintenance of lunch stands, ice-cream parlors, parks, bath-houses, the operation of livery stables, garages, etc. Theaters and sports of all kinds are also mentioned as "works of daily necessity," and are therefore exempted. Every one must at a glance recognize the injustice of these exemptions; for why should a grocer be counted a criminal for selling a loaf of bread to a hungry man on Sunday, while the lunch stand proprietor may feed people all the day and be scot-free? Again, why penalize the farmer or fruit grower for engaging in labor for the maintenance of his family, and permit the hired help in ice-cream parlors, livery stables, garages, and the actors and scene-shifters in theaters, all of whom work for maintenance wages, to follow their vocations seven days in the week as freely as they will? PROMOTERS OF BILL MUST RECOGNIZE ITS INJUSTICE
If not, why do they exempt every kind of Sunday pleasure, and penalize useful employment if done on that day? If such a law were right for one rank of laborers, it ought to be just as right for every other division, otherwise it is class legislation, which is entirely unconstitutional. These exemptions can be looked upon only as baits held out to secure the votes of all frequenters of pleasure resorts. How church people can condemn Sunday amusements in theory, and then deliberately vote for a bill to keep them running in full blast on that day, is certainly a conundrum. No Christian can be a party to such law enforcement and be consistent. SUPPOSED PROTECTION TO LABORING MEN
The advocates of this bill declare it to be aimed simply at employers who work men seven days each week. But this must be considered an insincere plea, for the reason that the California statutes have carried a law of this nature ever since February 27, 1893. It also has been enforced, and might be yet; for as late as 1912, in San Francisco, a Japanese proprietor of a moving picture theater was tried and fined $10.00 for failure to give an employee a day off in the week. WHY PUNISH THE POOR LABORER?
If the proposed Sunday law is for the protection of the laborer against the greed of the employer, why not punish the oppressor, as above cited, and let the oppressed go free? The cry is that the laborer is obliged to labor. But is he? Take the barbers for example. Nearly all belong to the union. If they will but agree to shut up shop on Sunday, no labor can be demanded of them. This, too, is much more simple than to call for the enactment of a law demanding that everybody else shall rest on Sunday because they do so. WHY A SUNDAY LAW DEMANDED
The heavenly Giver of human rights has never demanded rest of His subjects except on the day He calls His own. If one rests a day each week within his God-given rights, he must render that rest to God, whose rest day it is. But civil government can not by right order a weekly rest of citizens, because there is no day of the week owned or maintained by civil government. All days belong to Him who created and maintains them. The civil government has therefore no claim upon which to regulate the working hours or days of man's life. To undertake such work is to assume the responsibility of God toward man, and dictate heavenly duty for him. It is in this case a step toward uniting state and church, which has ever proved man's undoing. General Grant's advice is timely just now: "Keep the state and the church forever separate." The bill is therefore an unwarranted interference with the most precious natural right of manhood. Man's right to life includes the right to dispose of his God-given time, as his God-given reason suggests, up to the point where his time may be employed to trench upon another's individual rights. When confronted by the religionists of His day as to the claims of civil government upon man's time and service, the Christ of God, He who was heaven's ambassador to earth and man's surety for justice and eternal joy, decided the question thus tersely: "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's." In view of this equitable arrangement, Caesar's government, or civil authority, can by right demand from no one that for which he is responsible to God alone. For instance, man's life being God's endowment solely, that life belongs to God, and man must answer to God in the great day for the use he has made of it. Civil government, having no power to give life or to continue it, can have no just right, to order its division of time into working or resting hours. CALIFORNIA SUNDAY OBSERVANCE ALREADY MAINTAINED
In California every religious right of manhood is now guaranteed, including Sunday observance, even without a compelling law. These, too, average well with those of the states that maintain Sunday laws. Only two years after the repeal of the old California law, the Rev. W. F. Crafts, in his book on Sunday laws, said this: "Both laymen and ministers say that even in California the sabbath is, on the whole, better observed, and Christian services better attended, than five years ago." It is thus acknowledged that this state has observed Sunday better without a Sunday law than with one. It should go on in the same way that it has gone. A SYSTEM OF ESPIONAGE THREATENED
But now a law is demanded which assumes to fine or imprison one for working more than forty-eight hours in any given week665of seven days. And what is more, it enjoins upon peace officers of the state everywhere to inform against and prosecute any and all persons violating this provision. This discreditable work must be done by civil officials, under severe penalty, not because they have actually witnessed such infringement, but upon information from some possible enemy of the one accused. This amounts to no less than a system of espionage which is sure to beget neighborhood feuds and hateful contentions. While outwardly assuming to be a Sunday rest day measure, when analyzed, the bill is seen to contain the elements of a restricting labor law. This is shown in its penalty threatened to all who labor more than forty-eight hours each week. If it were a bona-fide Sunday law, it ought simply to require rest on that one day, without curtailing the hours of labor one may perform on the other six days of the week. By this provision of the bill, one sees in it more than a Sunday rest. He discovers that the bill if enacted into law would demand, under penalty, that everybody rest on certain portions of each working day as well. Let voters be wary of voting away their liberties, as they will if this bill becomes law. It is clear that inasmuch as the bill specifies the limit of hours of each week which may be used for honest toil, and permits unlimited hours for sports of every kind, it is not so much a Sunday rest that is wanted by the authors of the measure, as the control of men's time every day of the week, which would amount to human enslavement. But the bill is so disguised as to lead church people to believe that in securing its passage, they will have a genuine Sunday law. Hence their support is solicited to secure what a direct labor measure may fail to give for lack of votes. THE BILL'S RELIGIOUS PHASE
There appears in the bill an exemption for those who belong to an association observing another day of the week than Sunday. But why should one's church-membership exempt him from the application of a just law? Could any other state law be thought just with an exemption of this nature? Suppose that some association religiously believed it right to have a plurality of wives. Ought that to exempt one of its members from the penalty of the law against polygamy? Of course not. Why then this exemption? Doubtless simply to mollify the feelings of those who may sympathize with the class named as entitled to exemption. RESULT OF THE BILL'S ENDORSEMENT
So far as the religious phase of this proposed law goes, there are some things every voter should well consider before standing in its behalf. First of all, if this carries at the polls, no legislature has power, under the present constitution, to annul any feature of it. If once established, it must remain in force through all time, or until another initiative measure shall change it. In view of the fact that all religious legislation has ever been bad, and tends to injustice and persecution, voters should think carefully and well before enacting this bill. Religion is a matter resting wholly between man and his God, and beyond the purview of civil government. Why not therefore leave all people free in such matters, so long as they do not interfere with the rights of others? Think of the early struggles of our country to secure religious liberty, and vote on November 3 to maintain these sacred principles. Vote "NO" on No. 45. J. O. C.