Liberty-Demolishing Law Proposed by the Initiative in California—Would Make Us Criminals for Doing Useful Works on Sunday
By WILLIAM MAYHEW HEALEY
LIBERTY and equal rights, so long enjoyed in California, are threatened with destruction by two initiative measures to be voted on at the general election November 3, 1914. One of these measures is entitled "An act to provide for one day in seven as a day of rest." Subsections 3 and 4 of section 2 of this measure declare that it shall be unlawful on Sunday to keep open any store or place of business where goods or any property is offered for sale, or to sell or offer for sale any property on Sunday; and forbid labor for profit on Sunday in any mine, mill, factory, bakeshop, workshop, studio, or other similar place of business or work.
Section 3 imposes a penalty, for violation of the act, of "not less than ten dollars nor more than two hundred dollars," or imprisonment "in the county jail not to exceed thirty days, and upon each subsequent conviction, both said fine and imprisonment."
A LIST OF EXEMPTIONS
There is given in section 2 a long list of exemptions from the penalties of the proposed law, because they are "works of necessity." Among these exemptions are "hotels, boarding-houses, restaurants, lunch stands, cafes, and work incidental thereto; ice-cream parlors"; "sports, theaters, and amusements"; the preparation and sale of Sunday newspapers; "the sale and delivery of milk or cream, and unavoidable work in making cheese or butter." It exempts all railways, and every public utility, with every kind of transportation, and the use of water in mining or irrigating where the flow is not continuous.
The following exemption is made under k: "And provided, further, that the above subsections numbered 3 and 4 do not apply to any person who is a member of a religious society which observes some other day than Sunday as its day of worship, and who actually keeps his place of business or occupation closed and does not work for gain or wages upon said day of worship."
This measure proposes to establish Sunday by law as the day of rest and worship, and to enforce it upon the people by fines and imprisonment.
UNDER STRICT RULES AND REGULATIONS
Any person desiring to keep any other day is only permitted to do so under strict rules and regulations that are not imposed upon Sunday keepers. His day having no legal standing, like Sunday, he has no protection from the annoyance and encroachment of others upon his rest. He is denied the right of individual choice of a rest day, but is compelled to accept some day that others have accepted in sufficient numbers to form a society, of which he must be a member. He is positively forbidden to do any work for "gain or wages" on the day which he observes, while the Sunday keeper is allowed to labor on his chosen day of rest in a large number of industries as "works of necessity." If the Sunday keeper may sell ice-cream or conduct a theater on Sunday as "works of necessity," why should not the person who observes some other day have the same legal right to perform any of the "works of necessity" named above for gain or wages on the day of his choosing, provided he shall desire so to do?
All these discriminations in favor of Sunday keepers are violations of the constitution of the state of California, which declares that "the free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference, shall forever be guaranteed in this state." (Article 1, section 4, constitution of California.)
WOULD DESTROY OUR RIGHTS
To change this article of our constitution, or to override its plain declaration of liberty, would be to destroy the rights of the citizen guaranteed by the fundamental principles upon which our government is founded.
The supreme court of California has decided that "the enforced observance of a day held sacred by one of the sects is a discrimination in favor of that sect, and a violation of the freedom of the others." (Volume 9, page 502, California Reports.)
The injustice of this proposed law is proved by the large number of exemptions which its advocates are compelled to make. The law, being of itself a violation of the principles of justice, can have no just application to any person or thing, because an unjust law can have no just application. If a daily paper has a right to be published and sold on Sunday, a weekly or triweekly is entitled to the same right. This measure gives special privilege to the daily publication.
This proposed law allows theatrical managers and performers to work for gain on Sunday, and sends a man to jail for doing useful work.
MAY SELL ICE-CREAM, BUT NOT BREAD
The sale of ice-cream on Sunday is made legal; and by the same law, a person is declared a criminal if he opens his bakeshop on the same day to sell a loaf of bread.
The lunch stand is allowed to sell food all day Sunday, while the grocer may be fined $200 for opening his store to sell a nickel’s worth of crackers.
ALSO AN EIGHT HOUR LAW
Section 2, subsections 1 and 2, of this proposed law, forbid hiring or being hired to labor "more than six days in any calendar week of seven days." Subsection 4 contains an exemption to this as follows: "And provided that the above subsections numbered 1 and 2 do not apply to any person whose total hours of labor during seven consecutive days do not exceed forty-eight hours."
This exemption allows labor on every day of the week, provided the total hours do not exceed forty-eight in seven consecutive days. This would conflict with another proposed measure, on the ballot, which allows but eight hours of labor in any one day. It also utterly destroys the provision demanding Sunday rest.
INTERFERES WITH NATURAL RIGHTS
This proposed law regulating the free citizen’s private affairs of labor and rest, is an unwarranted interference with natural human rights and personal liberty, depriving him of his God-given freedom to the use of his own time and the choice of his own religion.
It deals with free men and women as though they were convicts, slaves, or wards of the state. With equal propriety the law could determine when and what a person should eat, and fix the time to retire at night and rise in the morning.
Both the "eight hour" and the "rest day" measure would subject employers to constant loss, vexation, and annoyance. Especially would this be true in agricultural industries, which totaled $371,000,000 last year in California.
It is practically impossible for the farmer, the dairyman, and the fruit grower to bring their work into any exact number of hours each day or week. The provisions of "necessity" and568"emergency" are subject to a wide range of interpretation and opinions.
The farmer or fruit grower, fearing rain, may work his help over legal time as an "emergency," while the complainant or prosecutor swears there was no rain and no "emergency."
INCONSISTENT WITH ITSELF
Like all Sunday and religio-civil laws, this measure is inimical to justice, inconsistent with itself, and contrary to every true American and Christian principle of equality and liberty.
This proposed law, in section 4, makes it the "special duty" of officers of the law to prosecute without actual proof of the violation of the law, but on "credible information," or — still worse — on "reasonable cause to believe that there has been any such violation." Of course it is for the informer to decide what is a "reasonable cause to believe."
The discriminations of this proposed law open the way for "busybodies in other men's matters" to establish a system of espionage upon those who observe some other day than Sunday. Besides this, every vote for this proposed Sunday measure is a vote for an eight hour law in disguised form. Then vote against all these unjust, meddlesome, mischief-making propositions, and leave all free to contract their own time of work, to determine their own days and hours of rest, and to choose their own religion.
