p. 16 | The Victory in California by Milton C. Wilcox

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 3, 1912

The Victory in California

By Milton C. Wilcox

Its Lessons

CALIFORNIA, the golden State of the West, has been a center of Sunday-law agitation preeminently since her first Sunday law was repealed more than a quarter of a century ago. The campaign of repeal was an education to the State. The Republican party, which stood for the maintenance of the obnoxious law, went down to defeat, and the Democrats, which stood for the repeal, to the surprise of every one, went into power. No other publication contributed more to the repeal of the Sunday law than did the special issues of the Signs of the Times printed at that time, under the able leadership of Elder J. H. Waggoner. Since that period there have been strenuous and persistent attempts to procure a Sunday law through the legislature, and Sunday closing locally throughout the State. Every device and subterfuge has been resorted to, every concession granted, every possible pressure brought to bear, to induce the legislators to pass such a law, and on one occasion a law of that nature was secured, only to be declared unconstitutional later by the courts.

During these efforts petitions have been sent in by the friends of religious liberty against all efforts and attempts to unite church and state, and these have had a part in preventing legislation of this character.

Failing at last, two years ago, the Sunday-law forces decided to make an attempt to secure a Sunday-law amendment to the constitution under the new initiative amendment. According to the initiative amendment it requires but the names of one eighth of the voters in a previous general election to place the Sunday-law amendment upon the ballot for the November election. The Sunday-law forces began quite early their efforts to secure this. All that was asked the petitioner was that he say by his signature, "I am willing that the question of a Sunday-law amendment to the constitution should be submitted to the people." In the meantime the number of voters had been doubled by the woman's suffrage amendment, so that practically all that was required was the signature of one sixteenth of the voters, or in other words, securing the names in round numbers of thirty-two thousand persons. Blank petitions were sent by the Sunday-law forces to fourteen hundred pastors in ten different denominations, requiring an average of less than twenty-five names to each pastor to secure the required number.

What was the result? The following letter from the office of the secretary of state, forwarded to me in the East, gives it concisely. Under date of August 27, Mr. Frank H. Cory, deputy secretary of state, writing for Mr. Frank C. Jordan, the secretary, says:—

"DEAR SIR: Your letter of July 14, inquiring as to the petitions for the proposed Sunday-law amendment received. In reply will state that the Sunday-law petitioners have filed in this office 8,714 signatures up to August 7. The said number of signatures was not enough to entitle it to be placed upon the ballot as a constitutional amendment in November, 1912."

The failure will be more apparent if we contrast it with petitions secured two years before. There were then secured in a short time more than sixty-eight thousand signatures against a Sunday law, but this attempt in which it was thought there would be a united effort of fourteen hundred pastors and their congregations failed to secure more than one seventh of that number of signatures on the simple question of submitting a Sunday-law amendment to the people. In other words, a few people in a short time secured over sixty-eight thousand signatures against a proposed Sunday law, while a much larger number in a longer time secured but 8,714 from double the number of voters.

The reasons for this are found, first, in the education that has been given to the people of California. From the first issue of the special Signs when the law was repealed, in the scattering of tracts, by the American Sentinel and the magazine Liberty, its successor, and by personal work by individuals and on the lecture platform, and otherwise, this work has been carried forward. There has been more or less agitation over the question for at least a score of years. Certainly if these fourteen hundred pastors were, or could have been, interested in a Sunday law, they could easily have secured the number of signatures required; but the simple fact is that many of them evidently do not believe in the union of church and state. They paid no attention to the petitions whatever. They did not even bring the question before their congregations. They evidently saw the principle underlying it. The agitation of the last quarter of a century has educated the people of California so that they can see the true inwardness and the ineffectiveness in a moral sense of Sunday laws.

Second, there have been presented many more earnest petitions to the throne of grace that the great God would himself overrule in respect to all these things, and he always works with his people when they enter into partnership with him.

The real lesson which we should learn from this experience may be expressed in the two words agitate, educate, and both of these to win souls. There are many honest souls in every community, the world over, who want to do just right. Many times when they act in a wrong way, they are doing it conscientiously. This has been demonstrated again and again in Sunday-law campaigns, and also in every true Protestant movement of the centuries in the past. Those who have been on the side of truth earnestly pressed God's claims, and tried in every way to induce men to see what was right and what was wrong, that they might win the honest of heart to the cause of truth. That is the lesson that we should learn. It is our business not only to enlighten men, but to win men; not to antagonize souls, but to save souls from that which will bring destruction not only to them personally, but to the state and church as well.

Those of us who had a part in the struggle in California take no credit to ourselves. We have only followed imperfectly God's plan, and to him we give all the glory. M. C. WILCOX.