The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-06-27
MAYORS COURSE IS LEGALLY AND
 LOGICALLY SOUND

LUGlCALD SUUND
 The New York Herald last Sunday had the following on Mayor Buckingham's attitude toward Sunday baseball:
 Bridgeport for several weeks has been the States storm centre of blue law agitation and, in some respects, of blue law enforcement. Since Judge Foster of its Pohce Court, proclaim ed that club licenses to sell liquor on Sundays wouldn't go with him the summer brsezes have been signing their song Of aridity through the de- serted club rooms.
 One does not have to be tenn perance man or the holder of very high views on morality to concede that in the guise of clubs there are in Bridgeport too many "Speakeasles, with their constant temptations 10 wage earners. There are dives there which, because of the debas1ng lnflu- ences contact with them engenders. have no redeeming features and are entitled to no leniency. But when the edict goes forth that reputable clubs and hotels are to be classed with these dangerous agencies cx AInnoI- ality which ought to be sternly sup pressed, the effect is an added aI- tempt to make criminals of those who are offenders against eX parte opin- ions rather than violators of law.
 Today, in Bridgeport club or hotel that would not incur the dis pleasure of a member or of a board CT or visitor who calls for liquid re- freshment has to play a game of hide and seek The hotels would have shaken off these shackles had the bill to Iegalize Sunday selling passed the Legislature. It went through the -fIv %10 sl1I Ind it and left it by the wayside. Now the hotel men of the State are trying to resurrect it and obtain reconsidera- ton by the House. Although the ho- tel men have large vested interests closely related to the welfare of the State which deserve more considera- tion than the House gave them, it nevertheless cannot be gainsaid that the poor showing there is to be at- tributed in large measure to misman- agement of the bill and a deplorable lack of team work.
 Mayor Buckingham's Stand.
 But, aside from the liquor question of the blue laws. The application of the eighteenth century statutes has been modified to the extent of per mitting professional baseball playing on Sunday. Because Mayor Sucking ham has stood firm in his refusal to
 
 to suppress this healthful sport and relaxation for thousands who have o other day to taste it's joys, he has en- countered the maundering rage of those who would make their own form of Sunday observance compul- sory with all. Nearly two score of clergymen have organized themselves into an association of protest and have poured a delicious dose of pull pit hot shot upon the Mayors de- voted head.
 On the other hand, so wide is the potential range of carrying criticism that there are those who find fault with the Mayor because he does not explicitly rather than impliedly stamp Sunday ball playing for an admit tance fee with his official sanction. Thus he is getting it from both sides. or, rather, from the two extremes and in this respect he is placed in position somewhat similar to that in which Mayor Hooker, of Hartford, found himself because of his attitude toward Sunday amusements.
 But Mayor Buckingham has taken course which is legally and logi- cally sound. He could not officially sanction the breaking of even an ab- Surd law. He is too sensible to use his official power to insist upon the enforcement of an absurd law. The manly attitude he has assumed is en- tirely in accord with the enlightened and preponderant public sentiment of his city. He may hear more of de- traction than of praise, but that is because most of the tents of the ap- proving multitude are pitched in the shadow of the eternal hills of God and His years. It is for the numeri- cally prominent but relatively ob- scure part of a great community that Sunday baseball is a boon. There are those of us who do not care for the on QT11n hIIf them. There is less coercion prac- 1sed to drive people to ball games than there is to get them into church. Few will be worse Christians because they heard the rattle of the base hit on Sunday, but many will be better.
 A Possible Extreme.
 Meanwhile the soda fountains gush in Bridgeport on Sunday and the wooded Indians glare defiance at the gleaming stars and uniforms of the Park City's "coppered" force. Clerl- cal hissing would swell into popular bowling if the ban were put on~the sale of the fumaceous Sunday cigar and the sweetly seductive lollypop. Yet Mayor Buckingham has as much right legally, morally and logically, to proceed against such traffic as he has to call halt on Sunday base-l ball. If he can be forced to do or II he can be forced to do the other. The clerical thesis, carried to its logi- cal conclusion, would put practically all the inhabitants of Bridgeport in limbs Judges and ministers of the Gospel included
 But Mayor Buckingham is not at all likely to retaliate in this fashion. His hide is not pachydermous, but he can better afford to bear the shafts and taunts of his assailants, serene in the confidence that he has the SUD- port or the great silent majority of ms constituents, than he can to be soaded by his turbulent tormentors in a crusade that would put Bridgeport into the category of flag stations. h. cioentaIly Mayor Buckingham is poli- tlcally stronger than he has been at any time since his election, nearly two years ago. He has become a puhIic figure of Stato i,,,ro..a-a- "