The morning times., 1897-02-14
THE PEOPLES FORUM.
District Reforms Delayed.

To the Editor Of The Times:
THE Capitol spelled with an has
turned its back on the Capital spelled with
an q in more than an architectural sense"
1 remarked to President Harrison in an
interview during tile first year OF his
Presidency. The theme was the proposed
restoration Of tie Sunday law, lapsed by
| clerical error three years before, for which
| for ten years / have been asking, with
others, as yet in vain. The President not
| only indorSed the Sunday law, hut also
said that my illustration was appropriate
as to the whole group of morals. Neither
on temperance, gambling, purity, nor the
Sabbath, had Congress given the District
even as good laws as the average city en-
ioyed under State laws and local ordinances.
| Ten years to get the correction OF
clerical error, Which an ordinary legisla-
ture would have corrected in ten minutes
| on such a representative petition from its
| chief city as has been presented in this case
| by ProtestantS, Catholics, workingrnen, with
| only enough opposition to afford the eX-
| ceptons that prove the rule. The latest
representative word is letter from Father
Stafford, Joining his appeal for the law
| to those previously made by the united
| Protestant churches, and by Archbishop
Keane in letters to me and TO the Commits
! sioners Father Staffords letter is as
| follows:
The Rev. Wilbur F. Crafts, Phi. D.:
Your kind favor enclosing draft of bill,
! S. 24S5-a bill further TO protect the first
| day Of the week as day of rest in the
District of Columbia received. This bill
seems to me in every way satisfactory, and
| able objection can be made to it / will
do what 1 can to help it. Yours faithfully,
I'D. J. Stafford"
| Even at this late hour Congress ought TO
| spare ten minutes to correct this ten years
| neglect to make good a law enacted by
| the people themselves, approved and used
| for a score of years, and then lost onl Y
! because it was found the mayor had in
| advertently failed to sign it. The case
| does not call for such extended depth as
| new legislation might demand Congress is
| only called on to verify a clerical error,
| which q local government would not haze
| allowed to remain for day, much less q
decade, a delay for which the District
| Committees are responsible
The age of protection bill, asked for
| thus far vain-by more numerous petitions
| from this District than any other District
| measure; by the churches, black and white;
| by the colleges, by the reform society, by
| the archbishop, is another case where Con-
| gress has failed to do what local gov
| ernment would surely have done in the in
| terest of morality.
| The Morse bill, even il passed without
| further amendments-and we are not sure
| of that-wili bethe weakest tlicense law that
| legislators have recently made in this conn-
| try, falling far below the Raines and Nich-
| olson and Brooks laws of New York, In
! diana and Pennsylvania respectively. These
| deficiencies, If continued, will be an ar
gument for some form of local government.
In any case they furnish ground for our
| appeal that Congress will take time TO pass
| all three of these measures before it ad-
| journs for a session in which otherwise
| tariff will bury them out of sight
Wilbur F. Crafts.