The herald., 1895-09-29
SUNDAY DESPOTisM

| ieeSll III spOtS all ONoI Wis COuutFy " cn'
force risidly Sunday laws since Com
missioner Roosevelt of New York has
demonstrated that apparently legislation
of that sort can be carried out
This strics enforcement is being inspir.
ed by one of two classes, the friends of
the enactments, and the enemies who
have been made victims of their partial
enforcement and believe that an all round
| consistent execution will result in their
becoming so odious that repeal is GER
tain to follow.
The town of Charlottesville, Indiana,
has just experienced taste of the kim
| OF execution of a Sunday law that an op-
| ponent of the same can give. The rood
citizens league of the Hoosier town was
organized primarily to enforce the law
against conducting a liquor bar on Sun
days. After desperate battle they sue
ceeded in closing both the front and side
| doors of saloons Sundays.
Then as might be expected the liquor
trade moved into the drug stores. For
awhile it seemed as if every man IN the
town became a martyr to chills, nervous
prostration and every other known ill
between Saturday night and Monday
morning and the drug shops just doomed
in supplying the unfortunate man hood of
Charlottesville with decoctions of de-
cidedly more spirited character than that
usually prescribed for the prevailing all
ments. But the Sunday treatment proved
effiacious and Monday morning found
every lord of creation with clean bill Of
health good until the following Sunday.
Then the league people became wrathy
and they procured from the legislature
new law that stopped the drug trade in
the Sunday brand of prescription. Not
satisfied with this they :xhumed a law
dated 1853 that had lain long in state
OF ''inocuous desue tude' and demanded
that the mayor enforce it.
This law, literally interpreted, would
close anything but the mouth of Mary
Ellen Lease. 1t prohibits al! citizens
pursuing their usual avocations" on the
Lords day except in cases of sickness,
necessity. or mercy. just here the mayor
drew the line. He did not mind the
closing of the salo ons, they belonged to
the other fellow, but this time his own
OK was gored. and "circum stances alter
cases." He conducted cigar and news
stand that did tn irving business on the
day that is presumably the sole property
OF preachers and of cooks who prepare
epicurean dinners. He knew that if he
attempted a general enforcement of the
antique statute he would have TO close
with the rest. He demurred; the people
who are convinced that it is their
bounden duty to take care of the manners
and morals of every body else, lnisted
and won. Then the mayor saw Roo Sc
welt and went him several better on the
enforcement of Sunday laws. He literally
construed the law and ordered com plete
suspension of practically every occupa-
ton, business and employment public or
private. in the town. Hotels were for
hidden to do business on Sunday; drug
stores.were ordered closed;- water works
employees told to lay off, and a COM
mand even given to shut down the cleo
trio light plant that supplies the city and
the churches with illumination. In svery
instance of refusal to obey the proclama-
ton the name of the law-breaksr was
listed to be submitted to the grand jury
A few weeks of this sort of ,hng and
the business element wilted and called
the mayor off. 1t developed that they
really did not wish the law strictly en-
forced. 1t was simply the same old story,
they wanted it applied to the "other fell
low.
OF course the mayor of Charlottesville
in his comprehensive enforcement of the
law as he found it,, was right. OF course
Commissioner Roosevelt of New York in
his thorough enforcement thus far of the
excise law Is correct.
off -.
cavil over the merits or dement's, the
right or the wrong of a legislative enact
ment. 1t is his duty to put and keep it
in operation until it is repealed or set
aside by courts of competent jurisdiction
The non or partial enforcement of law
yet alive is itself unlawful and is certain
in time to breed contempt for all law.
The latter is presumed to be the will of
the people, ana an executive officer is
the servant who is elected or appointed
to carry out the popular verdict No
other principle than this can be safely
tolerated in self-governing country.
To allow an executive to enforce law
just in the degree that it suits him is
CERTAIN ere long to open the door of op-
portuniiy for the p,rpetuation of inius-
lice and corruption. In all the criticism
that Commissioner Roosevelt is undergo
ing Just now, his critics Ignore one fact,
and that is that he has never uttered
one word in favor of the law He NAV.
for all that is known to the contrary, be
bitterly hostile to the principls that it
involves. His simple and invincible
proposition is to enforce the law as he
finds it. That is American; that is dem.
ocratc.
But in this rigid and i'm partial enforce.
ment the great truth is brought out more
foTcibly than ever that Sunday laws
themselves are un-American and uudem-
ocratic, unnatural and impractical bic.
The additional fact is developed that the
people who chiefly advocate their adop-
ton are either insincere or inconsistent.
or both. Invariably they desire Sunday
laws that forbid occupations or business
tnat is not essential to the satisfaction
of their needs or the qualification of their
tastes. They are like the people who favor
a tax on incomes greater than their own.
But, as we have said, the Sunday law.
of any or every kind, is I'M A merican and
undemocratic.
1t involves perversion OF governments
power; it means the i'm IMPOSITION of a
function that belongs not to any govern
ment.
| Governments were originally intended
| to protect peODe in their paturat riob,s.