New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1902-03-12
RALNSFORD RAPS CHURCHES.
ALSO HITS COMMITTEE OF FIFTEEN IN
DEBATE on SUNDAY SALOONS.

About two hundred members and guests of the
Nineteenth century Club were at Sherrys last
evening the regular meeting or the clup, the
feature being a debate between the Rev. Dr. W. S.
Rainsford, Of St Georges Episcopal Church, and
the Rev. Louis A. Banks, of Grace Methodist Epis-
copal Church, the subject, should the Saloon
@ Opened on Sunday?"
DIR. Gould. president of the club, introduced the
speakers. DR.. Rainsford took the affirmative side,
saying in part:
are stiu in retreat. Who was It opposed me
opening Of the museums on SUNDAY? VINO w ,, 1p7
posed the opening OF Libraries on Sunday! w no
give people a win Of fresh air? Who opposes the
games OF boys and girls Sunday The churches.
a couple of boys get into vacant lot on SUNDAY
the boys have hide their bah and bat or run off
Whether right or wrong, the boys { IN tne
pect that boys Will grow up for love Of SUNDAY
not do this and YOU shall not do that; you shall
not do anything on sunday but go to church"
instead Of the Cross. This has led to the passage
Of unfairly discriminating laws and laws IN ADVANCE
bet on The races at shcepshead Bay and Brighton
bling at the metropolitan horse tracks. the public
worse Than the horse racing. The gambling, law
ed. not With carefully thought out laws. buL
measures which are the product Of hasty half-hour
law Is passed, and control the liquor traffic
prohibition measure is demanded, -o,,,,,.
part OF Sunday twelve years l have the salts
faction OF Bishop Potter now expressing nearly
similar views. Bishop DOanc. of Albany has
changed his opinion also. and even see the
narrow Committee Of Fifteen at the last hour
acknowledging their inability to offer practical
solution. l might favor local option for the State
large but for the city Of NeW-York local option
would place a whip in the hands of the black
its teeth securely upon the police that even the
new reform administration cannot break II up.
The excise movement which look for in the
future will be along the line Of Gladstone's sug-
take the feature of private profit OF the bust
AS regards local option. even II il were car
ried by fifty thousand majority in Manhattan. as
long two hundred thousand poor men wanted
rable injury pass a prohibtory measure and make
men lawbreakers well.
DR.. Banks said that unless the saloons could be
shown 10 give what properly expected Of the
culture-they should not be opened. He thought the
saloon degenerating influence. and its position as
the poor mans cluD'' 'oVerworked." He pointed
the disfavor the saloon met among railroad
the Sunday saloon the greatest enemy of family
life. which, whether in the White House or the
tenement, was the citadel of the nation.
Dr. Banks quoted the remarks Of Theodore
Roosevelt when Police Commissioner of this city.
We have helped the poor man" said Mr. RoOse-
Welt speaking of the enforcement of the Sunday
liquor law. and notably have helped the
mans wife and children. Many who before
was accustomed to spend his weeks wages getting
drunk IN saloon now either puts them
takes his wife and children for days outing. The
hospitals found that their Monday labors were
lessened by nearly half, owing to the startling
diminution in cases of injury due to drunken
brawls The work of the magistrates who sat in
CorrespOndingiy decreased. All this brought
about by our honest enforcement Of the law