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File 6, pages 97-118 —97 “Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following amendment to the Constitution of the United States be, and hereby is, proposed to the States, to become valid when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the States, as provided in the Constitution:— {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 97.1} “SECTION 1. No State shall ever make or maintain any law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 97.2} “SEC. 2. Each State in this Union shall establish and maintain a system of free public schools adequate for the education of all the children living therein, between the ages of six and sixteen years, inclusive, in the common branches of knowledge, and in virtue, morality, and the principles of the Christian religion. But no money raised by taxation imposed by law, or any money or other property or credit belonging to any municipal organization, or to any State, or to the United States, shall ever be appropriated, applied, or given to the use or purposes of any school, institution, corporation, or person, whereby instruction or training shall be given in the doctrines, tenets, belief, ceremonials, or observances peculiar to any sect, denomination, organization, or society, being, or claiming to be, religious in its character; nor shall such peculiar doctrines, tenets, belief, ceremonials, or observances be taught or inculcated in the free public schools. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 97.3} “SEC. 3. To the end that each State, the United States, and all the people thereof, may have and preserve governments republican in form and in substance, the United States shall guaranty to every State, and to the People of every State and of the United States, the support and maintenance of such a system of free public schools as is herein provided. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 97.4} “SEC. 4. That Congress shall enforce this article by legislation when necessary.” {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 97.5} —98 What, then, do these men propose to do with the civil power when they can use it? The Christian Statesman is the organ of that Association, and in its issue of Oct. 2, 1884,said:— {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 98.1} “Give all men to understand that this is a Christian nation, and that, believing that without Christianity we perish, we must maintain by all means our Christian character. Inscribe this character on our Constitution. Enforce upon all who come among us the laws of Christian morality.” {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 98.2} To enforce upon men the laws of Christian morality, is nothing else than an attempt to compel them to be Christians, and does in fact compel them to be hypocrites. It will be seen at once that this will be but to invade the rights of conscience, and this, one of the vice-presidents of the Association declares, civil power has the right to do. Rev. David Gregg, D. D., now pastor of Park Street Church, Boston, a vice-president of the National Reform Association, plainly declared in the Christian Statesman of June 5, 1884, that the civil power “has the right to command the consciences of men.” {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 98.3} Rev. M. A. Gault, a district secretary and a leading worker of the Association, says:— {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 98.4} “Our remedy for all these malefic influences, is to have the Government simply set up the moral law and recognize God’s authority behind it, and lay its hand on any religion that does not conform to it.” {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 98.5} When they have the Government lay its hand on dissenters, what will they have it do? Rev. E. B. Graham, also a vice-president of the Association, in an address delivered at York, Neb., and reported in the Christian Statesman of May 21, 1885, said:— {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 98.6} —99 “We might add in all justice, If the opponents of the Bible do not like our Government and its Christian features, let them go to some wild, desolate land, and in the name of the Devil, and for the sake of the Devil, subdue it, and set up a government of their own on infidel and atheistic ideas; and then if they can stand it, stay there till they die.” {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 99.1} That is what they propose to do. And that is worse than Russia. In the Century for April, 1888, Mr. Kennan gave a view of the statutes of Russia on the subject of crimes against the faith, quoting statute after statute providing that whoever shall censure the Christian faith or the orthodox church, or the Scriptures, or the holy sacraments, or the saints, or their images, or the Virgin Mary, or the angels, or Christ, or God, shall be deprived of all civil rights, and exiled for life to the most remote parts of Siberia. This is the system in Russia, and it is in the direct line of the wishes of the National Reform Association. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 99.2} Nor is that all. Rev. Jonathan Edwards, D. D., another vice-president of that Association, makes all dissenters atheists. He names atheists, deists, Jews, and Seventh-day Baptists, then classes them all together as atheists. I will read his own words:— {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 99.3} “These all are, for the occasion, and so far as our amendment is concerned, one class. They use the same arguments and the same tactics against us. They must be counted together, which we very much regret, but which we cannot help. The first-named is the leader in the discontent and in the outcry —the atheist, to whom nothing is higher or more sacred than man, and nothing survives the tomb. It is his class. Its labors are almost wholly in his interest; its success would be almost wholly his triumph. The rest are adjuncts to him in this contest. They must be named from him; they must be treated as, for this question, one party.” {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 99.4} —100 They class us as atheists, and are going to condemn all alike; and you are asked to give them the power. Remember these are the views of the members of the National Reform Association, whose secretary stood at this table this morning in defense of this Sunday law. These extracts show what his ideas are, and how he would use them. Dr. Everts, of Chicago, who also was here, declared last month in Chicago, in my hearing, on the subject of this Sunday law, that “it is atheism or the Sabbath.” {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 100.1} Mr. Edwards continues:— {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 100.2} “What are the rights of the atheist? I would tolerate him as I would tolerate a poor lunatic; for in my view his mind is scarcely sound. So long as he does not rave, so long as he is not dangerous, I would tolerate him. I would tolerate him as I would a conspirator. The atheist is a dangerous man. Yes, to this extent I will tolerate the atheist; but no more. Why should I? The atheist does not tolerate me. He does not smile either in pity or in scorn upon my faith. He hates my faith, and he hates me for my faith. . . . I can tolerate difference and discussion; I can tolerate heresy and false religion; I can debate the use of the Bible in our common schools, the taxation of church property, the propriety of chaplaincies and the like, but there are some questions past debate. Tolerate atheism, sir? There is nothing out of hell that I would not tolerate as soon! The atheist may live, as I have said; but, God helping us, the taint of his destructive creed shall not defile any of the civil institutions of all this fair land! Let us repeat, atheism and Christianity are contradictory terms. They are incompatible systems. They cannot dwell together on the same continent!” {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 100.3} Senator Blair. —Many atheists are for Sunday laws. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 100.4} Mr. Jones. —Let them be so if they choose; but what I am striking at, is that these men have no right —101 to say that I am an atheist simply because I do not believe in keeping Sunday. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 100.5} Senator Blair. —You come here and seriously argue against these people, because they and the atheists blackguard each other. What have we to do with that? They abuse each other. It is worse in the Christian than in the atheist, because the Christian has some rules to guide his conduct, which the atheist has not. Here seems to be some strong intemperate language which one human being makes use of towards another. An atheist or a Christian alike may find fault with that. I do not know any way that we can interfere with it; but if you claim to argue against this bill because these people abuse atheists, I reply to that by saying that many atheists are for this bill just as these people are. They unite in support of this bill, therefore mutual recriminations amount to nothing. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 101.1} Mr. Jones. —But the mutual recrimination amounts to this, that although this is confined simply to words between them now,— {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 101.2} Senator Blair. —I do not think you ought to argue to us by taking this precious time of yours and ours to show that these people use intemperate language towards each other. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 101.3} Mr. Jones. —But I am doing it to show that they use the intemperate language now, but if they get the law, they will use more than the language against them. These men only want to make the State a party to their religious disputes. They want to get the nation by law to commit itself to the defense of religious observances, so they can add its power to their side of the controversy, and send to “hell” or some other place where the Devil is, those who even accidentally disagree with them. But the State has no business to allow itself to —102 be made a party to any religious controversy. That has been the bane of every nation except this, and God forbid that this one should be dragged from its high estate, and made the tool of the irregular passions of religious parties. The State will find its legitimate employment it seeing that these parties keep their hands off each other, and that the ebullitions of their religious zeal are kept within the bounds of civility. It is not safe to put civil power into the hands of such men as these. But that is just what this Sunday bill will do if it shall pass. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 101.4} Senator Blair. —The atheist is for this proposed law. He is not intelligently going to support a law which enables these people to burn him at the stake. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 102.1} Mr. Jones. —I know he is not intelligently going to do it. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 102.2} Senator Blair. —He is liable to be as intelligent as they are. Mr. Hume was a very intelligent man; so was Voltaire; so was Franklin, if Franklin was an atheist; Franklin was a deist, at all events. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 102.3} Mr. Jones. —It is safe to say that not one in ten of the people whose names are signed in behalf of this Sunday law now what is the intention of it, and what those will do with it when they get it. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 102.4} Senator Blair. —Then it is a lack of intelligence on their part. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 102.5} Mr. Jones. —I know people who signed that petition who would now be just as far from signing it as I would. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 102.6} Senator Blair. —That is because you told them of those terrible consequences which they had not believed would follow. The masses of the people do not believe that the Christian people of this country have united in every State in this Union for such a purpose. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 102.7} Mr. Jones. —Here is the principle: Here are six million Protestants and seven million two hundred thousand Catholics— {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 102.8} —103 Senator Blair. —Cardinal Gibbons has written a letter which is in evidence. He is for it, and a great many Catholics are also for it; but it does not follow that those Catholics are for it simply because Cardinal Gibbons wrote that letter. They were for it before Cardinal Gibbons wrote the letter. You must remember that the Catholics in this country are intelligent, as well as we. Some of them are ignorant, some of us are ignorant. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 103.1} Mr. Jones. —But here is the point. These people are complaining of the continental Sunday— {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 103.2} Senator Blair. —They do not complain of it because it is Catholic; they complain of it because it is not as good for the people as our form of Sunday— {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 103.3} Mr. Jones. —Certainly. And in this movement, the American Sunday, they say, comes from the Puritans, and these people know— {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 103.4} Senator Blair. —Do you argue against it because it comes from the Puritans, or because it comes from the Catholics? It comes from both, you say; we say it is for the good of society, and that God is for it, because it is for the good of man. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 103.5} Mr. Jones. —But let me state the point that I am making: I think everybody knows that it is perfectly consistent with the Catholic keeping of Sunday for the Catholic to go the church in the morning and to the pleasure resort if he chooses in the afternoon. These men stand here in convention, and cry out against the continental Sunday and against its introduction here. Everybody knows that the continental Sunday is the Roman Catholic Sunday. Yet these men, while denouncing the continental Sunday, join hands with the Roman Catholics to secure this Sunday law. They have counted here six million Protestants and seven million two hundred thousand Catholics. Suppose this law were secured in answer to these petitions, would —104 they then have a Puritan Sabbath, or a continental Sunday? In other words, would the six million Protestants compel the seven million two hundred thousand Catholics to keep Sunday in the Puritan, or even the Protestant way, or will the seven million two hundred thousand Catholics do as they please on Sunday, and let the six million Protestants whistle for “the breath of the Puritan “ which Dr. Herrick Johnson invokes? More than this, if it should come to compulsion between these, would not the seven million two hundred thousand Catholics be able to make it unpleasant for the six million Protestants? {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 103.6} Senator Blair. —I have been all through this that the working people go through. I have been hungry when a boy. The first thing I can remember about is being hungry. I know how the working people feel. I have tugged along through the week, and been tired out Saturday night, and I have been where I would have been compelled to work to the next Monday morning if there had been no law against it. I would not have had any chance to get that twenty-four hours of rest if the Sunday law had not given it to me. It was a civil law under which I got it. The masses of the working people in this country would never get that twenty-four hours’ rest if there had not been a law of the land that gave it to us. There is that practical fact, and we are fighting with that state of things. The tired and hungry men, women, and children, all over this country, want a chance to lie down, and rest for twenty-four hours out of the whole seven days. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 104.1} Mr. Jones. —So have I been through this that the working people go through. I have carried the hod by the day. I have swung the hammer and shoved the plane by the day. I am a working-man now just as much as I ever was, though not in precisely the same way; and I say to you that I never was robbed of that —105 twenty-four hours’ rest. Nor are there so many compelled to lose it as these Sunday-law advocates try to make out. Dr. Crafts said last night over in that convention that he had had communication with people in every nation but two, and— {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 104.2} “In the world around he could not find a man who had financially lost by refusing to work on Sunday. But many have gained by the conscientious sacrifice.” {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 105.1} Much testimony was born in the Chicago convention last month to the same effect in this country; and in the convention now in session in this city, the Hon. Mr. Dingley, member of Congress from Maine, said last night that the American working-men are indifferent to the efforts which are put forth in this direction. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 105.2} Senator Blair. —He is wrong about it. Mr. Dingley didn’t know what he was talking about when he said that. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 105.3} Mr. Jones. —He said he had investigated the matter. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 105.4} Senator Blair. —I have investigated it, and I say that Mr. Dingley was simply laboring under a misapprehension. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 105.5} Mr. Jones. —Dr. Crafts said this morning that he talked two hours with a convention of laboring men at Indianapolis, answering their questions, until at the end of two hours they indorsed this movement. If they are crying for it, if they are fairly tearing their hair for it, how can it be possible that he had to talk two hours to persuade them that it was all right? {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 105.6} Senator Blair. —Take his statement in full, if you take it at all. He says they are crying for it. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 105.7} Mr. Jones. —Then why was it necessary to talk to them for two hours? {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 105.8} Senator Blair. —Then you simply say he did not tell the truth? You discredit the witness? {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 105.9} Mr. Jones. —I do. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 105.10} —106 Senator Blair. —You say perhaps he did not tell the truth, that is all. I think he was right. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 106.1} Mr. Jones. —But the two things do not hitch together properly. If they are calling for it so loudly, certainly it ought not to require two hours to convert them. The fact is that the laboring men are not calling for it. Great effort is being made to have it appear so. But the Knights of Labor never took any such step except at the solicitation of Dr. Crafts. This bill had scarcely been introduced last spring before Dr. Crafts made a trip to Chicago and other cities, soliciting the endorsement of the Knights of Labor. Instead of their petitioning for this Sunday law, they have first been petitioned to petition for it; the object of it had to be explained, and objections answered, before they could even be brought to support it. The object of the petition for this bill was explained by Dr. Crafts to the Central Labor Union of New York, and its endorsement secured. the Central Labor Union embraces a number of labor organizations, and the Christian Union declares the Central Labor Union to be a “radically Socialistic” organization. This, in itself, would not be particularly significant were it not for the fact that the arguments which Dr. Crafts presents to these organizations to gain their support are entirely Socialistic. Nor are these confined to Dr. Crafts. Other leaders of the movement also advocate the same principles. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 106.2} Dr. Crafts went to the General Assembly of the Knights of Labor at Indianapolis last month to get the delegates there to indorse the petition for the passage of this Sunday bill. He has referred to this in his speech here this forenoon, and has made a portion of his speech to them and to the Locomotive Engineers a part of his speech here. A report of his speech at Indianapolis was printed in the Journal of United Labor, the official journal of the Knights of Labor of America, Thursday, Nov. 29, 1888. He said to them there:— {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 106.3} —107 “Having carefully read and re-read your ‘declaration of principles’ and your ‘constitution,’ and having watched with interest the brave yet conservative shots of your Powderly at intemperance and other great evils, I have found myself so closely in accord with you that I have almost decided to become a Knight of Labor myself. If I do not, it will be only because I believe I can advance your ‘principles’ better as an outside ally.” {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 107.1} The following question was asked by one of the Knights:— {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 107.2} “Would it not be the best way to stop Sunday trains to have the Government own and control the railroads altogether, as the Knights advocate?” {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 107.3} Dr. Crafts answered:— {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 107.4} “I believe in that. Perhaps the best way to begin the discussion of Government control for seven days per week is to discuss this bill for Government control on one day. If the railroads refuse the little we now ask, the people will be the more ready to take control altogether.” {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 107.5} The Knights of Labor advocate the doctrine that the Government shall take control of all the railroads in the country, and hire the idle men in the country at regular railroad wages, and run the roads, as it now runs the Post-office Department, without reference to the question whether anything is made or lost by the Government. This is what gave rise to the above question. Dr. Crafts proposes to play into their hands by making the bid for their support, that if they will help the Sunday-law workers get Government control of the railroads one day in the week, then the Sunday-law workers will help the Knights to get Government control every day in the week. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 107.6} Another question that was discussed both there and at the convention of Locomotive Engineers at Richmond, Va., was the following:— {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 107.7} —108 “Will not one day’s less work per week mean one-seventh less wages?” {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 108.1} The response to this was as follows:— {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 108.2} “As much railroad work as is done in seven days can be done in six days, and done better, because of the better condition of the men. And on this ground the engineers would be sustained in demanding, and, if necessary, compelling, the railroad company to so readjust the pay schedule that the men will be paid as much as at present.” {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 108.3} That is to say, Dr. Crafts and the Sunday-law workers propose to stand in with the laboring men to compel employers to pay seven days’ wages for six days’ work. This is made certain by the following petition to the State legislatures, which is being circulated everywhere with the petition for this bill. I got this at the Chicago convention. Dr. Crafts distributed the petitions by the quantity there, and he is doing the same at the convention now in this city:— {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 108.4} “To the State Senate [or House]: The undersigned earnestly petition your honorable body to pass a bill forbidding anyone to hire another, or to be hired for more than six days in any week, except in domestic service, and the care of the sick; in order that those whom law or custom permits to work on Sunday may be protected in their right to some other weekly restday, and in their right to a week’s wages for six days’ work.” {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 108.5} Now a week consists of seven days. A week’s wages for six days’ work is seven days’ wages for six days’ work. This petition asks the legislatures of all the States to pass a law protecting employees in their right to seven days’ wages for six days’ work. No man in this world has any right to seven days’ wages for six days’ work. If he has a right to seven days’ wages for six days’ work, then he has an equal right to six days’ —109 wages for five days’ work; and to five days’ wages for four days’ work; and to four days’ wages for three days’ work; to three days’ wages for two days’ work; to two days’ wages for one day’s work; and to one day’s wages for no work at all. This is precisely what the proposition amounts to. For in proposing to pay seven days’ wages for six day’s work, it does propose to pay one day’s wages for no work. But if a man is entitled to one day’s wages for doing nothing, why stop with one day? Why not go on and pay him full wages every day for doing nothing? It may be thought that I misinterpret the meaning of the petition; that, as it asks that nobody be allowed to hire another for more than six days of any week, it may mean only that six days are to compose a week; and that it is a week’s wages of six days only that is to be paid for six days’ work. That is not the meaning of the petition. It is not the intention of those who are gaining the support of the Knights of Labor by inventing and circulating the petition. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 108.6} Dr. George Elliott, pastor of the Foundry Methodist Church in this city, —the church in which this National Sunday Convention is being held, —the church that is now festooned with fourteen million petitions that they haven’t got, —festooned, at least partly, with one seven-million-two-hundred-thousand-times-multiplied Cardinal, —Dr. Elliott, while speaking in favor of this bill this forenoon, was asked by Senator Call these questions:— {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 109.1} “Do you propose that Congress shall make provision to pay the people in the employ of the Government who are exempted on Sunday, for Sunday work?” {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 109.2} “Mr. Elliott. —I expect you to give them adequate compensation. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 109.3} “Senator Call. —Do you propose that the same amount shall be paid for six days’ work as for seven? {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 109.4} —110 “Mr. Elliott. —I do; for the reason that we believe these employees can do all the work that is to be done in six days. And if they do all the work, they ought to have all the pay.” {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 110.1} There it is in plain, unmistakable words, that they deliberately propose to have laws, State and national, Which shall compel employers to pay seven days’ wages for six days’ work. This is sheer Socialism; it is the very essence of Socialism. No wonder they gained the unanimous endorsement of the convention of the Knights of Labor, and of the Locomotive Engineers, and the Socialistic Labor Union of New York City, by proposing to pay them good wages for doing nothing. I confess that I, too, would support the bill upon such a proposition as that if I looked no further than the money that is in it. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 110.2} But this is not all. The Knights of Labor not only accept the proposition, but they carry it farther, and logically, too. This principle has been advocated for some time be the Knights of Labor in demanding ten hours’ pay for eight hours’ work —virtually two hours’ pay for doing nothing. The Christian Union and the Catholic Review propose to help the working-men secure their demanded eight-hour law, and then have the working-men help to get the six-day law by forbidding all work on Sunday. Dr. Crafts and Dr. Elliott go a step farther, and propose to secure the support of the working-men by having laws enacted compelling employers to pay them full wages on Sunday for doing nothing. But the Knights of Labor do not propose to stop with this. The same copy of the Journal of United Labor which contained the speech of Dr. Crafts, contained the following in an editorial upon this point:— {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 110.3} “Why should not such a law be enacted? All the work now performed each week could easily be accomplished in five days of eight hours each if employment —111 were given to the host of willing idle men who are now walking the streets. It is a crime to force one portion of a community to kill themselves by overwork, while another portion of the same people are suffering from privation and hunger, with no opportunity to labor. The speech of the Rev. Mr. Crafts, published elsewhere, furnishes an abundance of argument as to why such a law should be put in force.” {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 110.4} So when the Sunday-law advocates propose to pay a week’s wages for six days’ work of eight hours each, because all the work can be done in six days that is now done in seven, then the Knights of Labor propose to have a week’s wages for five days’ work, because, by employing all the idle men, all the work that is now done in seven days can be done in five. And as Dr. Elliott has said, “If they do all the work, they ought to have all the pay.” But if a week’s wages are to be paid for five days’ work of eight hours each, that is to say, if two days’ wages can rightly be paid for no work at all, why should the thing be stopped there? If the Government is to take control of the railroads all the time in order to pay two days’ wages for doing nothing, and if the States are to enact laws compelling employers to pay employees two days’ wages for doing nothing, then why shall not the Government, both State and national, take possession of everything, and pay the laboring men full wages all the time for doing nothing? For if men have the right to one day’s wages for no work, where is the limit to the exercise of that right? The fact of the matter is that there is no limit. If a man is entitled to wages for doing nothing part of the time, he is entitled to wages for doing nothing all the time. And the principle upon which Dr. Crafts and his other Sunday-law confreres gain the support of the working-men to this Sunday bill is nothing at all but the principle of down-right Socialism. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 111.1} —112 There is a point right here that is worthy of the serious consideration of the working-men. These Sunday-law workers profess great sympathy for the laboring men in their struggle with the grinding monopolies, and by Sunday laws they propose to deliver the working-men from the power of these monopolies. But in the place of all these other monopolies, they propose to establish a monopoly of religion, and to have the Government secure them in the perpetual enjoyment of it. They may talk as much as they please about the grasping, grinding greed of the many kinds of monopolies, and there is truth in it; but of all monopolies, the most greedy, the most grinding, the most oppressive, the most conscienceless the world ever saw or ever can see, is a religious monopoly. When these managers of religious legislation have delivered the working-men from the other monopolies —granting that they can do it —then the important question is, Who will deliver the working-men from the religious monopoly? {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 112.1} Senator Blair. —Abolish the law of rest, take it away from the working people, and leave corporations and saloon keepers and everybody at perfect liberty to destroy that twenty-four hours of rest, and lawgivers and law-makers will find out whether or not the people want it, and whether they want those law-makers. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 112.2} Mr. Jones. —There are plenty of ways to help the working-men without establishing a religious monopoly, and enforcing religious observance upon all. There is another point that comes in right here. Those who are asking for the law and those who work for it, are those who compel the people to work on Sunday. In the Illinois State Sunday convention in Chicago last month, it was stated in the first speech made in the convention, “We remember how that the working-men are compelled to desecrate the Sabbath by the great corporations.” —113 The very next sentence was, “We remember also that the stockholders, the owners of these railroads, are members of the churches, that they sit in the pews and bow their heads in the house of God on the Sabbath day.” {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 112.3} Senator Blair. —That is only saying that there are hypocrites in this world. What has that to do with this proposed law? {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 113.1} Mr. Jones. —I am coming to that. It has a good deal to do with it. The stockholders who own the railroads act in this way, those men said; and it was stated by a minister in that convention that a railroad president told him that there were more petitions for Sunday trains from preachers than from any other class. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 113.2} Senator Blair. —There are a lot of hypocrites among the preachers, then. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 113.3} Mr. Jones. —Precisely; although you yourself have said it. I confess I have not the heart to dispute it. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 113.4} Senator Blair. —I do not find any fault with that statement. If it is true, it does not touch this question. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 113.5} Mr. Jones. —If these preachers and church members will not keep the Sabbath in obedience to what they say is the commandment of God, will they keep it in obedience to the command of the State? {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 113.6} Senator Blair. —Certainly the hard working man needs rest; the preachers, church members, and millionaires may do as they please: the bill comes in here and says that the national government, taking part of the jurisdiction of the civil government of the United States by a concession made by the States, by virtue of its control of interstate commerce, and the post-office business, and the army and navy, will take advantage of what the States have given to the general Government in the way of jurisdiction, and will not introduce practices which destroy the Sabbath in the States. That is the object of this legislation. That is all that is undertaken —114 here. It is simply an act proposing to make efficient the Sunday-rest laws of the State, and nothing else. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 113.7} Mr. Jones. —But those laws are to be enforced, if at all, by those who are so strongly in favor of them. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 114.1} Senator Blair. —No, by the State. If these people were in favor of them, or not in favor of them, or violated them, that is another thing. A man may be for a law which he violates. A great many of the strongest temperance people in the world use intoxicating liquors. They say that they realize the evil, and that they are in favor of the enactment of law which will extirpate those evils. The strongest advocates I have ever seen of temperance legislation are men who have come to realize that the grave is just ahead of them. They cannot get rid of the appetite, but they pray the government: for legislation that will save the boys. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 114.2} Mr. Jones. —That is all right. I am in favor of prohibition straight; but not Sunday prohibition. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 114.3} Senator Blair. —You cannot adduce a man’s practice as a reply to the argument on a question that touches the public good. It does not vitiate a man’s principle because he fails to live up to it himself. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 114.4} Mr. Jones. —But the secret of the whole matter is this: As an argument for the Sunday law, these men assert that the great railroad corporations desecrate the Sabbath, and by persistently running Sunday trains, also compel the railroad men to work and to desecrate the day. They at the same time assert that the men who own the railroads belong to the churches. If, then, the railroads compel their men to desecrate the day, and the owners of the railroads are church members, then who is it but the church members that are compelling people to desecrate the day? {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 114.5} Further than this, they quoted at Chicago the statement of a railroad president, that the roads “get more —115 requests for Sunday trains signed by preachers” than they do from other people. But as the church members own the railroads, and the preachers request them to run Sunday trains, then who is to blame for the “desecration” of the day but the preachers and their own church members? Can’t the preachers stop asking for Sunday trains without being compelled to do so by the civil law? In the Chicago convention last month —November 20, 21 —Dr. Knowles, who is secretary of this National Sunday-law Union, said that by the influence of William E. Dodge, even after his death, the Delaware & Lackawanna Railroad Company had resisted the temptation to run trains on Sunday until the present year. But five hundred ministers met in conference in New York and used competing lines on Sunday, and by this the hands of the Sunday observance committee have been tied ever since. After that, when the Delaware & Lackawanna directors were asked not to run Sunday trains, they replied,— {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 114.6} “How can you come to us pleading for us to run no trains on Sunday, when your preachers by the hundreds on Sunday use our rival lines, which do run on Sunday. If your preachers ride on Sunday trains on other roads, we cannot see why they and other people cannot ride on our trains on Sunday. And if it is all right for these other roads to run trains on Sunday, —and certainly ministers of the gospel would not ride on them if it were wrong, —then we cannot see how it can be such a great wrong for us to run Sunday trains.” {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 115.1} That is a very proper answer. No wonder the Sunday committee’s hands are tied by it. And yet that very conference of five hundred preachers, assembled in New York last summer, took the first decided step toward the organization of the National Sunday Association, of which Dr. Knowles himself is secretary. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 115.2} By these facts there is presented the following condition —116 of things: (1.) Church members own the railroads; (2.) Preachers sign requests for Sunday trains; (3.) The church members grant the request of the preachers for Sunday trains, and the preachers ride on the Sunday trains, and other church members go on Sunday excursions; (4.) Then the whole company —preachers and church members —together petition Congress and the State legislatures to make a law stopping all Sunday trains! That is to say, they want the legislatures, State and national, to compel their own railroad-owning church members not to grant the request of the preachers for Sunday trains. In other words, they want the civil power to compel them all —preachers and church members— to act as they all say that Christians ought to act. And they insist upon quoting all the time the commandment of God, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” [Ex 20:8-11.] But if they will not obey the commandment of God, which they themselves acknowledge and quote, what assurance have we that they will obey the law of Congress or State legislature when they get it, especially as it will rest entirely with themselves to see that the law is enforced? Will they compel themselves by civil law to do what they themselves will not otherwise do? The sum of this whole matter is that they want the civil power to enforce church discipline; and that not only upon themselves, but upon everybody else. The whole system, and all the pretensions upon which this Sunday law is demanded, are crooked. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 115.3} As to the enforcement of the law, it will fall to those who are working to get it; because certainly those who do not want it will not enforce it, and the officers of the law are not given to the enforcement of laws which are not supported by public opinion. This is proved by the fact that the State of Illinois and the city of Chicago now have Sunday laws that ought to satisfy any reasonable —117 person, and yet not one of them is enforced. And the preachers of that city and State, instead of seeing that these are enforced, call convention after convention to work up more Sunday laws, both State and national. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 116.1} What, then, is the next intention? —It is to make it a political question in both State and nation, and make the enactment and enforcement of Sunday laws the price of votes and political support. This is proved by the following resolutions adopted by the Elgin Sunday-law convention:— {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 117.1} “Resolved, That we look with shame and sorrow on the non-observance of the Sabbath by many Christian people, in that the custom prevails with them of purchasing Sabbath newspapers, engaging in and patronizing Sabbath business and travel, and in many instances giving themselves to pleasure and self-indulgence, setting aside by neglect and indifference the great duties and privileges which God’s day brings them. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 117.2} “Resolved, That we give our votes and support to those candidates or political officers who will pledge themselves to vote for the enactment and enforcing of statutes in favor of the civil Sabbath.” {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 117.3} Such a resolution as this last may work in Illinois, though it is doubtful, but with their own statement made in that convention, it is certain that this resolution can never work under the Constitution of the United States. They stated in the convention that the Sabbath is “the test of all religion.” To demand that candidates or political officers shall pledge themselves to vote for the enactment and enforcement of statutes in favor of the Sabbath is, therefore, to require a religious test as a qualification for office. The national Constitution declares that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under this Government; “consequently, no Sabbath or Sunday-law test can ever be applied to any candidate for any national office or public trust. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 117.4} —118 It is true they use the word civil in the resolution, but that corresponds with much of their other work. There is not, and there cannot be, any such thing as a civil Sabbath. The Sabbath is religious wholly, and they know it; and in all their discussion of this resolution and the subject generally in the convention, it was as a religious institution, and that only. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 118.1} Senator Blair. —Is there any other point you would wish to present? {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 118.2} Mr. Jones. —There is another point, and that is, that we will be sufferers under such a law when it is passed. They propose to put in an exemption clause. Some of them favor an exemption clause, but it would not in the least degree check our opposition to the law if forty exemption clauses were put in, unless, indeed, they should insert a clause exempting everybody who does not want to keep it. In that case, we might not object so much. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 118.3} Senator Blair. —You care not whether it is put in or not? {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 118.4} Mr. Jones. —There is no right whatever in the legislation; and we will never accept an exemption clause as an equivalent to our opposition to the law. It is not to obtain relief for ourselves that we oppose the law. It is the principle of the whole subject of the legislation to which we object; and an exemption clause would not modify our objection in the least. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 118.5} Senator Blair. —You differ from Dr. Lewis? {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 118.6} Mr. Jones. —Yes, sir, we will never accept an exemption clause, as tending in the least to modify our opposition to the law. We as firmly and as fully deny the right of the State to legislate upon the subject with an exemption clause as without. {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 118.7} Senator Blair. —There are three times as many of you as of his denomination? {1889 ATJ, NSLS18 118.8} |
