The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-08-07
SUNDAY LAWS AND ANARCHY
Springfield Republican.)

Changes in the Sunday observance law of Connecticut are not likely to be made at this session, but for all that the debate in the state senate on the Sunday amusement question re. vealed the fact that the question is one in which the public are interest ed. One Senator even declared that he owed his election to the fact that he had pledged himself to favor a more liberal law.
 The subjects seem to gain in in- terest for the moment because of the Imprisonment of Upton Sinclair, the author, and several other members of the single tax colony at Arden, Del, for playing tennis and baseball on Sunday last The Delaware law evil dehtly has teeth in it, although it is true that Sinclair and his associates preferred to go to jail as matter of principle rather than to pay the fine at first imposed by the Delaware magistrate. Their incarceration is be- ing turned into a moral protest against what they regard as an an- tiquated and unjust statute. and they may now even be prepared to thank the philosophical anarchist" who v1- plated all of his own principles in bringing down upon them the heavy hand of the law, ostensibly because the defendants had made so much noise in his neighborho although in fact he was seeking revenge upon the single taxers for having put him out of one of their public meetings.
 The debate in the Connecticut leg islature the past week or. two on Sun day observance laws-for the House has rejected a bill while the Senate has passed one-developed the essen tial points of the subject. Senator Spellacys bill providing for local op- tion, that is, empowering mayors and kn1 ~A nf col n rnC n- day amusements as they please, seems crude and open to the criticism that it would introduce politics into the Sunday observance question in a most objectionable form; but the Senator condensed the question into striking sentence full of meaning when he said: "You are making anarchists when you make one class stand idle and watch the other class go by in their automobiles" The automobile seemed to be in the minds of most of the Senators who favored an easing up of the law. Senator Hooker of Hartford said:
 Hartford could do about anything they wanted in their country clubs and golf links and in their automobiles, but the man who lived in tenement with only a few cents to spend for carfare could shut himself up in his tenement. Since Hartford was shut up tight, he knew of 20 clubs that had sprung up, where, under the club rule. there were card games and drinking. and which were veritable dens of vice and wickedneSs. He said he did not think it any more wicked for a crowd of men to sit in the open air and watch a ball game on Sunday than it was for the more favored ones to dance about the State in automobiles"
 The question of the Sunday law, as thus presented becomes class ques- tion. Under present conditions. it is maintained, the rich are favored and the poor suffer from discrimination. And every6ne realizes that the advent of the automobile and it's widespread use on Sunday as an amusement and recreation vehicle has rendered it ab- surd to deny equivalent privileges to those of less means.
 The Judson bill, which the Connec- ticut Senate voted down, was fair and reasonable compromise. It was far more conservative in it's effect upon cities and large manufacturing towns than the Spellacy local option hiI The former would allow amuse- ments, games and sports on Sunday between certain hours, but would keep them on an amateur basis, eliminat- ing gate money and professionalism. OnQer the SpehdCy Uill, d CoWu UT CiSy could be made ''wide open" at the mere nod of a mayor or board of se- lectmen placed in office, perhaps, by some unholy alliance of selfish and corrupt interests.
 The imprisonment of Mir Sinclair and his associates in Delaware illus trates a condition of affairs that can- not be much longer tolerated, because it involves social contrasts so glarins as to be positively mischievous Whole some amateur games and recreation must be made lawful, or there will be more anarchists as the result of the Sunday habits of the wealthy.