SHALL the present Oregon Sunday blue law, enacted in 1854, in territorial days, and finally amended in 1865, be repealed in the November election, or shall it be retained as a statute? If retained, will it be again fanned into a burning flame by the selfish and narrow-minded, as it was last fall? This was evidenced in the prosecution of certain grocers in the state's metropolis, and in other municipalities. Shall the inherent individual liberty of choice in matters of conscience and religion be denied?
If this law is to be enforced, thus destroying the liberties of good, moral citizens of our fair, free state, it should be repealed. On the other hand, if it is to be a "dead letter," it should be repealed. In either case, therefore, it should be repealed.
Let every voter who desires civil and religious liberty for himself, and believes in the fundamental principles of "Old Glory," our national emblem, vote "Yes" on the Sunday forced rest repeal bill, No. 312. Let him thus demonstrate that he believes in the right of choice in questions of religion or nonreligion for every other man, woman, and child, as well as for himself.
Confusion reigns among that class of citizens who advocate Sunday forced rest. First, some hold that Sunday should be legally reckoned as a state and national holiday. But it is that now. With this view, those who oppose Sunday forced rest are in full accord; for men and women are at perfect liberty to work or rest on such days, as each may elect.
The second view is that Sunday compulsory rest is in the interest of municipal, state, or national morals. In presumably substantial proof of this, it has been judicially stated that "uninterrupted labor tends to moral debasement." What can this mean but that "he who labors during the light portion of the day, week after week and year after year, or the reverse — during the dark portion of the day — is ethically debased"? For no man labors "uninterruptedly" the twenty-four hour day, week after week.
Possibly to a limited degree, this judicial declaration is correct; but does this prove that there should be one day in every seven for compulsory rest? Why not one in eight, or ten, or six? Does this prove that the physically muscular man, in the flower of manhood, requires the same number of consecutive hours of weekly rest required by the feeble woman of sixty years? Does not rather the law of physical being require that every one rest when weary? Is it not the law of religion which requires the weekly Sabbath rest? Which?
The other side of the picture shows that "uninterrupted" idleness tends to far greater ethical "debasement" than does uninterrupted labor. Thinking people everywhere recognize this.
But this is not all. Advocates of Sunday forced rest give their thought another setting. It is this: Sunday forced rest is desired in the interest of the day as the "American" or "civic" sabbath. Is not the claim that Sunday is the "American sabbath" rather amusing, when England, Germany, France, and Russia each observed it as a day of rest prior to our existence as a nation? When did we as a nation file our claim to the day?
There can be no such thing as a civil Sunday law or a "civic" sabbath. It is a misnomer. To illustrate: The man who sells a loaf of bread from his grocery store on Sunday is642judged by this blue law as a criminal, while the man who baked that loaf of bread may sell the mate to it from his bakery, and is not condemned, being judged by the same law. However, the grocer who sold the loaf of bread on Sunday is just as civilized as he would be if he were forced by state or municipal "police power" to go to church on Sunday. Sunday forced rest has nothing whatsoever to do with one's civilization.
But that which is actually desired by the advocates of Sunday laws is that God be recognized in the fundamental law of America, and that Sunday as a religious institution be enforced upon all classes of citizens, irrespective of tenets of religious belief, and that the law require the sacred observance of Sunday of the irreligious man also.
Every citizen in the nation, if not already informed, should be made aware that such laws are contrary to the first and the fourteenth amendment to the federal constitution. Every Oregonian should vote "Yes" on No. 312, Bill to Repeal the State Sunday Blue Law, on November 7, 1916.
