The herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1893-1900, 1895-10-02

holiday, from scientific or prudential
reasons, a Sunday law would neither be
undemocratlc nor un-American. Again,
your assertion in the same conn ection
that government has no right to Die
tate how its citizens shall spend their
days" is plausible, but fallacious. 1t
is based on false assumption, namely,
that Sunday law would necessarily
have to prescribe in positive manner
what people must do on Sunday; where
as. it is we'll known that the Sunday laws
aimed at by the religious zealots of to-
day would be negative rather than posi-
tive in their requirements. prescribing
what people must not 90. not what things
they must do. fhis same kind OF So
phistry is used against the Prohibition
lists, namely, that prohibition is wrong
because it Is sumptuary legislation pre-
scribing what people shall drink; while
in fact prohbitory law would say moth
ing about what people should or should
not drink, but only what kind OF bust
ness should not be followed by the citi-
Zen.
Secondly. your description of the
object OF government is seriously at fault.
You say it is TO protect people in their
natural rights This definition is en-
tirely inadequate. Blackstone says:
Governments are established for the
preservation of society,"" The objects
OF government, then, must include some
thing more than the merely natural
rights" OF man. For il that expression
has any definite meaning it signifies the
rights pertaining to men, not in the
social or civil state at all, int in a state
of nature isolated from and unaffected
by society.
With such state, even if conceivable.
and with rights pertaining to such a
state, government really has nothing to
do, except TO modify and abridge such
rights. Indeed, civil government in its
very nature implies the exchange or sur
render of the natural condition, with all
its rights and privileges. for the social
or civil state, with its greater rights and
privileges. In strictness tho question of
tights and wrongs can hsvs no existence
let us use the word right, and saw that
man in the natural or isolated state
would have right to fish, hunt, fell
tim Der or cultivate the soil wherever he
pleased. The moment he becomes asso'
ciated with others of equal rights with
himself anG a state of civilization ensues
this natural right is at an end, and as a
law-abiding citizen he will have TO pillow
on mis- own size of the fence. So that it
is evidently erroneous to say that the OBJ
ject of government is to protect people
in their natural rights"
The object of government s. far from
being the mere conservation of mans
is to lift HIN out of these conditions into
a state of civilization and progress; from
the animal plane of individu alism, war
and competitive struggle. to the plane of
humanity, brotherhood, cooperation,
collectivlsm. Even the lower orders of
the animal and vegetable world have to
be lifted out of their wild conditions of
competitive struggle and tanned, protect-
ed and developed by the hand of civiliza-
tion before they amount to anything.
Yet the average man, even in the dawn
ing light of the twentieth century, will
tell you the competitive, the war condi-
ton is the correct thing fer human soci-
ETY. and civilization. But the world
moves. The method of civilization is
law; its prinoipl business. righteous
ness. The object of government is re-
vealed in the purpose of civil law. This
purpose saws Blackstone again, is ''tC
mand what is right and to prohibit
what is wrong" But instead of prohib-
iting the wrong, our law makers have H.
censed it and society is a hot-bed for the
propagation OF vice, crime, debauchery.
injustice, poverty, discord, misery. Yet
the defenders of this shameful condition
of things will prate about the govern
ment-ths state-having no right to enact
such and such laws for the suppression of
these evils. 1t 1t is really the purpose of
civil Law to commend what is right and
prohibit what is wrong" the state not
only has right but is under the most
solemn obligation to enact and rigidiv
enforce any and every law necessary for
the redemption OF society from the blight
of evil, vice and wrong.
W. c. BOWMAN.