p. 19 | Baltimore Battling With Blue Laws by C. E. Holmes

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 25, 1914

Baltimore Battling With Blue Laws

By C. E. Holmes

BALTIMORE, Md., is now passing through some interesting times. After having been enslaved for years to an old Sunday blue law, passed in 1723, the city is demanding a change.

The activity of the Maryland Lord's Day Alliance was the chief factor in the movement. Committed to the Puritan idea of Sunday observance, this organization has been working to draw the lines of intolerance closer and closer. The people of Baltimore are now thoroughly aroused, and are intent upon getting rid of the existing Sunday laws, if possible.

Whether or not the undertaking is successful, one thing of great importance has been accomplished. The people of that city have been educated in religious liberty principles. One Baltimore paper has devoted page after page to opinions on this matter from leading men and women. The educational value of the principles set forth in print is beyond computation.

Those upholding the Sunday law have clearly shown the religious character of this kind of legislation; while those championing the principles of religious and civil liberty have in many cases expressed true Christian and American principles.

One clergyman declared that "to publicly defy God in the way proposed would be to invite national disaster and personal harm. . . . When the city council proposes to enact an ordinance legalizing sin,—that's what it means,—we cannot help but think it is a high-handed business. . . . The city council in effect says, 'Who is God, anyway?' Carrying the idea of defying God into law is beyond all precedent."—Baltimore Star, May 24.

Practically all the arguments of those opposed to a modification of the blue laws are summed up in this pessimistic view just quoted. There are, however, many clergymen in favor of the movement. Rev. George C. Peck, pastor of the First M. E. Church, takes a just, Christian position on this question. He says:—

"I do not say that playing baseball is the best way to worship God. If any one comes to me, I will tell him a better way, but I am liberal enough to allow him to decide for himself."—Id., May 25.

A city councilman, recognizing the principle involved in the question, says:—

"We should recognize the principle of 'the state for the state and the church for the church.' It is bad to mix these two institutions in politics."—Id., May 29.

Another councilman said the blue laws "cannot be regarded as other than un-American, for they are opposed to the cardinal principles of the Constitution of the United States. Under that Constitution we are granted religious freedom—that very freedom of conscience and religious conduct which these blue laws are designed to restrain."—Id., May 26.

Rev. Alfred R. Hussey, pastor of the First Unitarian Church, also stated a vital principle when he said:—

"We have no right to dictate to the forty-two per cent of the population of the city who have no church connection how they must spend their Sundays. Minority rights must always be respected. Add to the number of persons whom the recent religious census showed to be without church connection, the Hebrew population of Baltimore, and others who do not observe our sabbath, and I believe that you will find them in the majority. Certainly we have no right to force them to obey laws which are, to say the least, narrow."—Id., May 15.

Mr. Lewis Hochheimer, a member of the bar, objects to the Sunday law on this ground:—

"It violates the principle of religious liberty. To compel a citizen to abstain on a Sunday, or even a holiday, from kinds of labor the pursuit of which tends to interfere with its observance by others, is fully in reason and within the province of law. But to brand him as a criminal if he engages in any occupation, though it be noiseless and harmless and carried on unobtrusively and in the privacy of his home, on the ground that it is a 'desecration' of the day, is in effect to punish him for 'nonconformity' to the tenets of others. Such legislation is akin to the old English laws against dissenters from the rites and ceremonies of the established church and in violation of the fundamental principles of our government."—Baltimore American, May 22.

State Senator William J. Ogden, at a mass meeting in the interests of Sunday baseball, said:—

"I am an active church worker, and it is as such that I say that certain churches of this city are making a serious mistake in trying to fasten bigotry and intolerance in religion. I wish I could make certain ministers understand that religion may be taught without the aid of law and the police. Let these ministers allow people to enjoy what God has given to them, and not invoke the aid of the policeman's club to drive persons into the churches."—Baltimore Star, June 10.

Mr. Luke W. White, president of the Sunday Baseball Association, at a hearing before the Joint Committee on Police and Jail, said:—

"It matters not whether I am Protestant or Catholic or Jew, I, like any other citizen of this country, have the right to protest against any attempt to coerce me into accepting a belief that is not my own.

"If members of the Lord's Day Alliance want to observe Sunday afternoon in their way, there should be no law to restrain them from doing so. On the other hand, it is manifestly improper that the Lord's Day Alliance should be permitted to compel those who conscientiously differ from their view to conform with their requirements."—Id., June 4.

The clearest view I have yet seen expressed in this controversy was an editorial in the Baltimore Star of May 19. Writing under the title, "The Issue Made Clear," the editor says it is "whether Baltimore stands ready to decree that, if some of her citizens will not go to church against their will, they shall continue to be prohibited from finding healthful amusement, as a punishment for their nonconformity. It is the issue of religious liberty versus the same sort of persecution from which our ancestors fled when they dared the terrors of an uncharted ocean and an untamed continent to found a nation whose fundamental law is liberty of conscience."

I believe that the cause of religious liberty will be helped by this public discussion. Many will have correct principles brought to their attention in a very definite and practical way. The world is fast becoming stirred over the Sabbath question. This is in harmony with the prophecies, and we should make use of every such opportunity to give God's message.