The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1895-08-22
"ENFORCE THE LAW"

Governments are lnStltuIeu tiaI ldWS
may be enacted and penalties infict-
ed. The individual who for conscience
sake or from conviction disregards
any law is an Anarchist, and Should
be made to answer. The Declaration
of Independence, having been inspired
of legal expressions, doesn't declare
that governments are instituted for
any such purposes, but there are RATS
of people who seemingly are convinced
that it does.
The Memphis Commercial-Appeal,
abiding to the Seventh Day Advent
lists in that state, who have been sent
to the chain-gang for observing Satur-
day as the Lords day instead of Sun
day. says: AS the laws against the
violation of Sunday are unrepealed, no
matter whether just or unjust, wise or
unwise, they should be enforced" And
so these conscientious AdventistS are
condemned TO the rock pile and to pay
fines.
Christ, whom these AdyentiStS wor-
ship, said: IF any man hear my words.
and believe not, Judge him not; for
| came not to Judge the world, but to
save the world The political trim
mers. strikers and leaders who are now
denouncing the people Of Wichita as
Anarchists, not only do not have the
spirit of Christ but some Of them
would condemn those who do not be-
lieve with them, to the rock pile, and
not a few of them would rejoice to see
the editor of the Eagle consigned to
the stake or starved. They do not
happen to have the power. The viii
is theirs.
The enforcement Of law is illumin-
ated by good many vivid illustra-
tons. We are not talking OF penal
laws for the suppression Of crime, but
Of civil law for the suppression of con-
victions, and for the regulation of daily
life, with penal attachments. All his
tory is crowded with their tragedies.
The martyrs were victims, not of &c
cleSiastical or criminal laws, but vic
Tins of civil laws enforced by eccles-
iaStical powers who declared every
body a criminal that refused to comply
with their preachings. You cannot
get around history with its inQuisi-
tons in Spain, its wholesale hangings
in the Netherlands, its Autodafe in
France, nor more than you can deny
the present Imprisonment of the poor
innocent Adventists in Tennessee.
The Cry of enforce the law" has
been the justification of injustice, and
the prosecutions of the ages. ''It was
civil law that cast the Hebrew children
into the fiery furnace, that consigned
Daniel to the lions den, that put to
death the apostles, that gave the early
Christians to the beasts Of the arena,
that burned Huss and Jerome and all
the long line of martyrs, that whipped,
banished and hanged Quakers and
BaptiStS in New England and Virginia
until the outrage Of these prosecutions
eliminated in the religious liberty en-
joyed today" If this be treason or
sacrilege make the most of it for we
quote it from q religious paper. Christ,
Himself, was crucifed by rabble of
fanatics who were none the less mob
because they had appealed to the
"laW."
These hypOcrites who are crying out
against the respecting and God
fearing people of Wichita, can't use
red-hot pincers and branding irons, the
rack, the wheel nor the stake and its
accompanying fagot, but many Of them
would If they could.
In response to this cry of 'enforce
the law" men are going to be imprison-
ed, here in Wichita, their wives and
children are going TO cry for bread,
business men are going to be broken
up and driven away, properties are
going to be ruined and homes rendered
comparatively worthless, but those who
shall rejoice over it will do So only in
the spirit which animated the fanati-
cal crowd that cried "crucify Him,
cruelty Him!