p. 8 | THE OUTLOOK by W. N. G.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 15, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 50.

THE OUTLOOK

By W. N. G.

"I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will look forth to see what He will speak with me."

ANOTHER SUNDAY-LAW CAMPAIGN IN CALIFORNIA.

We are already forewarned that the next Legislature of California, to convene next month, will be urged to enact a Sunday law. The following petition is now being circulated throughout the State:—

PETITION.

"To the Senate and Assembly of the Legislature of California— "We, the undersigned, residents of — , in the county of — , California, respectfully ask your honorable body to enact a sabbath law that will prohibit all unnecessary secular labor and business and all public sports and amusements inconsistent with the sanctity of the day, and that at the same time will secure the necessary weekly rest to all classes of weary toilers."

The people are being urged to sign this document, and many of them will sign it. Some will sign it thinking they are doing God service; others will sign because they are asked to do so; still others will attach their names as a matter of business or political policy—fearing the oft-threatened boycott, which many people who favor such measures deem a Christian argument. Because many may and will be induced to sign this memorial thoughtlessly, not knowing the possibilities for evil that underlie such a law, we ask whoever may read this to pause and consider what is involved in legislation of that character.

1. Do you want the California Legislature to outline your religion? We anticipate your answer; you unhesitatingly answer, "No!" Not even the most ardent Sunday-law advocate in the State wants such an act in his own behalf. Not a single individual who has signed, or will sign, this petition—not even the author of the petition, or the authors of the proposed law—would think of asking the Legislature to formulate any religion for him to profess, or a religious dogma for him to support. Yet this is just what you ask the Legislature to do for other people when you sign this petition. More than that, you ask the Legislature to enforce upon other people, not the religion which that body might of itself invent, but the religion which you already hold, or, by your signature to the foregoing petition, profess to hold. And you do this in the name of Christianity, the basic principle of which is stated by Christ himself in these words: "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them; for this is the law and the prophets." Note that He proclaims this doctrine as "the law" of Christianity between man and man. Now to ask any power to legislate in opposition to this law is antichristian in the extreme. And it is asking the Legislature to commit the State to a policy that must antagonize one class of citizens professing Christianity against another class professing Christianity, and against those who make no profession at all.

2. The advocates of the Sunday law will tell you that such legislation is not religious; that it is a necessity to the physical well-being of the individual, etc. But the words of the petition, and the results in other States where the Sunday laws are enforced, prove that it is religious legislation. The petition calls for "a sabbath law that will prohibit all unnecessary secular labor and business and all public sports and amusements inconsistent with the sanctity of the day." Why, if it is merely for the physical necessity of rest, is that particular day designated? Could the clergy and other religious people who have inaugurated this move be induced to advocate a compulsory cessation of labor for physical rest on any other day of the week? You know they could not be so persuaded. It is a fact patent to every observer that in their councils, in their sermons on the subject, in the statements of purpose of all their unions, leagues, associations, or societies, as the case may be, their expressed design is "a better observance of the Lord's day." The Sunday law is expected to put an end to "desecration of the Sabbath." In whatever language they may couch their memorials or the proposed statute, the purpose is enforced observance of a religious institution. A noted champion of State and national legislation on this subject, the one whose arguments have been most frequently quoted by other advocates, says, "If you take the religion out, you take the rest out." The law is demanded by religious people. Every movement of the kind in the State has been inaugurated by the ministers; and if the law be enacted, it will be enforced only at the instance of religious people, or by a vicious class of irreligious people who may find the law a convenient weapon with which to annoy or persecute those against whom they may hold prejudice or personal grudge. This is the way such laws have worked in all other States where there has been any pretension of enforcing them.

3. An organ of one of the leading factors in the present crusade says: "The Israelite and the seventh-day Christian are not required to rest on the first day, if they observe the seventh." This implies that this particular faction of the Sunday-law crusaders intend that there shall be an exemption clause for the benefit of those who observe the seventh-day Sabbath, which is another proof of the religious character of the day. (By the way, if the Israelite and the seventh-day Christian can rest on Saturday without a State law to compel them to do so, or to protect them in so doing, why can not others keep Sunday without a special law to that effect?)

4. It is not a question of which day is the Sabbath; it is not a question of differences of opinion between different classes of people professing to be Christians. It is a question of rights for all classes. What about people who have no religious scruples, who do not recognize an obligation to observe any day in a religious manner? Have they no rights which the State is bound to respect? or is the State made for the sole benefit of those who profess to be Christians, and who think all others ought to be compelled to formally observe at least one of their institutions? How about the people whose employments do not engage them more than half the time? How about those who have no employment at all, or those who catch odd jobs of a day or two at a time? Must they needs be compelled to rest on Sunday? These classes comprise a very large number of people. But if one of them should happen to find some work on a Sunday, the pay for which was much needed by himself or his family, this tyrannical Sunday law, urged onto the statute-books by professed Christians, would rob him of his earnings to pay a fine, or it would lay him up in prison for a time.

5. These are not fancy sketches. There are thousands of unemployed men in the State to whom a day's work, even on Sunday, would be a welcome boon. It is safe to say that where there is one man overworked by Sunday labor there are a score that have not employment one-half of the time. Go amongst the laboring classes, in whose behalf so much of this Sunday law ado is made, and the burden of their appeal is, "Give us work." They are not crying for rest. They have too much of that now. Go into our cities, and one of the most difficult problems is how to furnish something for the unemployed to do, something to satisfy the demand for bread. Already the calendar in the Police Court is larger on Monday morning than on any other day; and why?—Simply because so many people are idle on Sunday. Now it is clear that if there are so many people compelled to work on Sunday as the Sunday-law adherents claim, the number of men idle on that day would be quite largely augmented.

6. Those who are circulating this petition will probably renew the oft-repeated plea that the Sunday law is needed to protect the people at worship from unnecessary annoyance. These need to be reminded that there is already a section of the code covering that ground on every day of the week. Section 302 of the Penal Code reads as follows:— "Every person who wilfully disturbs or disquiets any assemblage of people met for religious worship, by noise, profane discourse, rude or indecent behavior, or by any unnecessary noise either within the place where such meeting is held, or so near as to disturb the order and solemnity of the meeting, is guilty of a misdemeanor." And section 19 of the same code provides that crimes of the grade of misdemeanor are punishable by "imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding six months, or by a fine not exceeding five hundred dollars, or both." So, for the purpose of protecting from annoyance those who are assembled for worship, there is now a statute far more potent than a Sunday law, because it is far more comprehensive in its scope.

7. Before you sign a petition for a Sunday law, remember that those who are conscientiously opposed to being coerced or to coercing others in the matter of Sabbath observance have rights which the State is bound to recognize, and that the true recognition of one person's rights will not make it possible to prohibit the exercise of the rights of another person.