The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1907-12-28
SUNDAYODSERVANCE
JUDGE WALLACE SAYS REASONS
FOR CRUSADE ARE NOT
PURELY RELIGIOUS.
Day of Rest Ordained by Divine Ex-
ample Before the Fall Of Man, and
Is Not Exclusively for Benefit Of
Church-BIow to Human Avarice
Being Dealt by Crusade.

Being Dealt by Crusade.
Kansas City, Dec. 23.-Judge Will
liam H. Wallace, Of the Jackson coun-
ty criminal court, who has been cred
tied with having started the Sunday
observance movement that now has
become widespread, has issued a sig
nificant statement to the Associated
Press on his Interpretation of the Mis-
souri, law that he is seeking to en-
force. He arraigns those who he says
violate the law for pecuniary gain,
and dwells upon what he says is a
crying need of one day of rest out of
every seven.
AS result of Judge Wallace's cam
paign, the county grand jury has, since
September 20 last, returned 1,101 in
dictments against violators of the Sun
day law; forced hundreds of shop
keepers to close their places of bust
ness on that day, and, within the past
three weeks, has placed over half a
thousand Sunday working actors, &C
tresses, theatrical managers and their
employees and others under bond for
hearing later. The jury is still in
session, and the judge says he will
not cease until the law is respected to
the letter.
Judge Wallace has for many years
been one of the foremost lawyers in
the state, and has always fought for
law enforcement. He was appointed
to his present position by Gov. Joseph
w. Folk, who has accomplished what
no other Missouri executive had ever
done, namely, the closing of the sa-
looms on Sunday.
BY Divine Example.
Judge Wallace, in his statement,
says:
1T is a mistake to suppose that the
Sabbath is purely religious institu-
ton and that it's enforced observance
| is for the benefit of the church. The
Sabbath was ordained before man had
fallen or there was church or a
need for a Redeemer. By Divine ex.
ample the Almighty ordained it. He
resting from the work of creation on
the seventh day, and He impressed
forever upon it it's sacred character
by 'hallowing' it. The Sabbath would
be with us had sin never entered the
world.
Hence, when we think logically
and historically, it is easy to per-
ceive how it is that a desire for a
day of rest is a latent institution with
the laboring man. The tyranny Of six
thousand years of human avarice has
not eradicated it. Justice Field, so
long a member of our United States
supreme court, was right when, as one
of the supreme judges of California,
he declared that Sunday laws are en-.
acted primarily for the protection of
labor. We cannot wonder, therefore,
that men who work for wages in all
the departments of human industry
are sending in the unanimous indorse-
ment of the labor unions to which they
belong. Nor should we wonder that
avarice is turning it's guns upon the
friends of Sunday observance. It can
on Sunday glut it's ravenous nav with
more of the wages that have been
paid the 1aborer than on any other
three days of the week combined.
That Sunday theaters are as rich a
harvest as the Sunday saloon is proof
Of this fact.
Origin with Bible.
''But consistent as it is with the
needs and constitution of man, the
idea of one day in seven as day of
rest was not evolved by natural re-
ligion or human philosophy. It is a
divine revelation. 1t is the peculiar
feature of Christianity, by which is
meant the system of theology taught
by the Old and New Testaments. Its
origin is with the Bible, and not with
Confucianism or Brahmanism or
Buddhism or the NEUROLOGICAL relig-
ions of Greece or Rome or of any
other nation.
upon the two doctrines briefly
stated above, namely, that the consti-
tuition Of man requires and the word
of God commands one day in seven as
a day of rest, are grounded the Sun
day statutes Of the several states of
the Union. With rarest exceptions
our judicial decisions, whose name is
legion, rest upon precisely the same
foundation. Ministers and priests
could not have pronounced the Sab
bath more sacred than have the
judges. Sunday laws have been de
clared constitutional by practically