The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-11-04
SUNDAY LAWS VS.
 REST DAY LAWS.
Sabbath Legislation Insufficient in a Complex Age Rest Day Laws to Protect Men Needed Wide Pre- vaIence of Seven Day
 Work.
John A. Fitch.

John A. Fitch.
 (ExcMsive Service The Survey Press Bureau.) Sunday laws in the United States
 were put on the statute books through the efforts of churchmen. They are no mere rest-day laws, these restric- | tions that have come down in Amer | ica from Colonial days; they are de- | signed to protect Sabbath rom 1 dissertation. They do not generally designate the day of rest as Sunday but as ""the first day of the week. commonly called the Sabbath" and one state at least describes the day ! as ''tile Sabbath, commonly called the Lords Day.
 That reverent spirit of devotion that put such expressions into secu- lar laws. and made the state the de- fender of religion while at the same time declaring church and state to be forever separate. was the Splrlt that has animated much that is best in our national character. When the Sunday laws were written we were simple people with no large factories. no railroads nor trolleys, telegraph nor telephone. There were no large cities and there was no labor prob lem as we know it today. So the Sunday laws were just Sunday laws and no more. Nobody thought of them as affecting the relation of em- ployer to employe.
 But now all is changed. Where our fathers needed a law to protect a religious institution, we need law to protect men. And in complex age we are vainly trying to accom- plish the latter through the medium of the old Sunday laws. It is like going to meet machine-guns with bows and arrows.
 For the old Sunday laws have broken down. They were not need ed to protect men at first. But the rise of that need has not only dem onstrated the need of a stronger law; it has also rendered the Sunday laws useless as defenders of the Sabbath. What are the facts. In transporta- tion. communications. and manufac- turing, thousands upon thousands of men are obliged to work seven days 1 in every week. Railroads. trOlleys, teiegraphs and telephones, blast fur naces,' smc1ters, cement mills, paper mlls-theSe are we'll known as Sev- en-ds-y industries. Yet if the facts were known I think We would find majority of the seven-day workers in other employments, so general. has contlnuous operation become, and so unmarked it's advance. Canneries and 5eet-sugar factories are seasonal industries that run seven days week and twecty-four hours day during the season. Power plants heating l and light plants are operated seven days q week. Even the men In the railroad pumping stations. whether in the New England hills, on the prair- les of Nebraska, or on the Western Slope. work seven days week. But It comes closer home than this bare statement would indicate. Your ! milkman comes every day rain or shine. winter and summer. Your paper-boy makes his rounds every day. The baker delivers hot rolls on Sunday morning. If you want to go 1 on journey on Sunday you may go to the telephone and a girl--a. Sun day worker--connectS you with a tayicab company. A cab driven by a Sunday worker is sent for you, or you can take the street-car and give your nickel to a Sunday worker. You I go to the station and buy a ticket of a Sunday worker and then you buy magazine of another. At the train crew of Sunday workers minister to your comfort and safety. You go into the dining car for lunch and other Sunday workers wait on you. If you arrive at your destination be- fore night you go to hotel ana Sunday working employees take your grip to your room, and then you go to dinner and are waited on by other Sunday workers. In countless ways you accept the services of people to
 whom Sunday is day of work
 Most of these people who waited
 on you are not only Sunday day
 workers but seven-day workers.
 Newspaper employees and. telephone
 operators generally get one day of
 rest week, but the other employees