San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1895-04-14
SUNDAY LAW CULPRIT.
HOW DID HE GET INTO OCONNOR's
BILL.
An Open Letter by "a Constituent"
to Hon. John A. o'Connor.
SAN ANTONIO, April u, '95.

your humble constituents, to ad
dress you note.
On yesterday, 1 read, with su
preme concern, in the San Antoni
Express Of April 10, 1895, that yo,
had such serious difficulty, IL
passing through the legislature o
Texas, your great aDti-Tammany
anti.Democratic police bill.
In the Express of the 10tf
inst, we find Information fur
nished by YOURSELF that with
out your knowledge or con.
sent the infamous Sunday
law had "crept" into your bill, and
just about the time your great
measure was about to glide
through the Legislature, you had
the great good luck to find the
deadly hydra headed monster coil.
ed up in the bill, and had to have
your bill recommitted to the com
mittee to get the vile serpent out
Oh, what a horrible wrong some
villain has attempted to do unto
you, our eminent statesman, orator
and Populist!
We wonder, and wonder again,
how that eXecrated Sunday law
crept into your great measure to
mar its great beauty and destroy
its usefulness.
The first impression of every
one, was that you had carelessly
left your manuscript bill lying
around, aud that the vile law had,
as you stated, crept into the bill,
and we all at once hunted up since
January a law to see if it, in fact,
had legs or feet to creep into the
bills OF honorable members OF the
legislature; but all our judges and
lawyers assure us that tho said
law has neither feet nor legs.
Learning this, we were forced to
the conclusion that the hated law
just rolled over into your bill, and
we attach much blame to you for
being so careless, after writing
every word and every line OF your
bill, as to leave the manuscript out
of your desk or in your unlocked
desk, so that the Sunday law or
any other law could roll over into
it.
And yet still some OF your clos
est friends say that Judge Flem-
ing, r. NJ. Moore or Ed. Haltom,
or some other Sunday law advo.
cate, stole your bill after you had
written and read it over the last
time, and interlined the vicious
law. II this is true, why are you
silent? Why do you not expose
the villain, SO that we, your friends,
may down him-tear him limb
from limb?
Why do you not jump on this
infamous Sunday with law both
feet?Why notwrite bill styled"O'-
Connor's bill to repeal the Sunday
law" and force it through the Leg
islature; so that the insolent
thing, may not hereafter creep into
the bill in Legislature, and bob up
in your oath the next time you are
elected and sworn in as a legisla-
tor.
But every issue has two sides.
The above is one, and here is the
other; a great many OF your con-
stituents say that you never wrote
the metropolitan bill at all, that
you cannot write a legislative
bill at all, even if one Sec
ton; but that others hashed up
the act from a similar bill offered
or passed in the New York Repub-
lican legislature, intended to cut
the claws of the Tammany Demo-
cratic tiger; and that you never
read the bill, and il you did read
it you did not understand its pro-
visions. Now this is certainly too
much for your friends to believe.
No, it cannot be true that you
placed before the legislature of
Texas, and gave it your great
American-Irish name and cham
pioned its passage, bill which
you had not prepared or even
read. Oh, no, we cannot stand
that; but il such are the
facts, why do you not
mount even the house tops in your
district, and expose the villains,
who tried in this neiarious man.
ner to Ak upon your dear constit-
uents this intolerable Sunday law?
Oh cry aloud and give us their
names, that we may forever exc
crate the miscreants and even bury
them alive.
But all these things confuse us
we cannot comprehend the situa-
ton you are in; there is some
thing behind, and your explana-
ton that the Sunday law
crept into your bill with
out your knowledge, does not
explain; and the friendly advice is
here rendered, that you adopt Pres
ident Cleveland's advice, "tell the
truth )" and say that the metropol-
itan bill is not your production at
all; that others, and give their
names, in San Antonio prepared
the bill; and you adopted it, and
In fact read 1t, bnt was unable TO
discover any reference to the Sun