Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1912-10-08
IN WAR
ON BLUE LAWS
Statutes That Prohibit Innocent
Entertainment Aid Vice,
Says Speaker.

Former Judge Algernon I. Swee-
ney, at a Progressive meeting in
North End Hall last night, ex-
pressed some decidedly liberal views
on the enforcement of certain laws,
particularly the vice and immortality
statutes and the Sunday closing laws.
He said in part:
1.-THE Board of Education last win
ter, under the direction of our genial
friend, Arthur G. Balcolm. gave a
number of concerts and entertain
ments, and this winter 1t is hoped to
give more. Those concerts, in direct
violation of the law. 80 $40 per
cent. of the people of Newark APP
prove. but it is against the law.
You say t. the mayor and the board,
ignore the law But the mayor an
swers, I thought hat was your
great complaint against me that
do not enforce the law
I'VE are about to have women
members of the board. Do you think
it is proclaiming the chivalry of the
State to break the laws and their
oath to serve our youth? Common
sense requires that the laws be
changed.
I'VE believe thai one of the great
est evils of our time is lawlessness.
We believe that lawlesness engenders
lawlessness, and that laws that can
not be enforced should be revised.
We realize that the population of the
great metropolis within our country
is made up of different races, and of
many nationalities, having back of
them different historical experiences,
and speaking different languages;
extreme differences of knowledge;
wide religious differences; profound
moral differences; extreme economic
differences, and that the social life
of this great working miscellaneous
mass of humanity must necessarily
be different from other perhaps more
favored municipalities made UP of
communities of 1ike-minded men who
believe in the same kind of right
eousness, scorn the same kind of in
EQUITIES and are ready to make the
same kind of sacrifices to secure the
same general good
I'VE, therefore. hold that the pres
ent vice and immortality statutes writ
ten more than one hundred years age
and ignored for the last and present
generation, should be revised, because
their only present influence is to
breed lawlessness; and that they
should be rewritten to embody pres
ent-day ideals of conduct and the
~present-day common consciousness of
right and wrong. We further believe
that the city of Newark and other
municipalities of the county should
have the right to regulate their rec
reation affairs seven days in the
week to the end that real public opin-
ion shall rule, and hat Sunday rec
reation, instead of breeding lawless-
ness. shall become. as 1t should be, a
tremendous social force for righteous
ness second only to the church itself.
"You would be quit of this subject
and having in mind the Board of Ed
ucation matter you say again
Ignore the law but it cannot be
ignored; 1t meet and Injuries our
youth everywhere. The city's three
little Fairgrounds are open Sundays
but u magnificent parks are all
closed to our boys and girls for games
Notwithstanding that regular teams
play regular schedules of baseball in
every ward in every town, township
or city in Essex county, without any
exception. so far as I know; although
1t is well-known that the Park Com
mission have for years been of the
opinion that the parks of Newark at
least should be open to afternoon
games for several years, but they are
deferred by the same law you tell the
mayor to ignore.
"Wage-earning girls may not play
tennis in the parks, but their more
favored sisters may play golf, because
they have the money. Personally. ]
think the vice and immortality act
well named, because a law that per-
mits all the saloons in Newark to
be open, but locks up as tight as a
drum their real competitors, the peo-
pies playhouses; a law that permits
a sacred concert monopoly, but pre-
vents the University Club from bring
ing TO Newark Madam Schuman-
Helnk and Walter Damrosch with the
New York Symphony Orchestra; a
law that keeps girls from playing
tennis and boys from playing ball
but permits wealthy people to play
golf and hire the boys for caddies tc
perform the irksome part of the job
and at the same time turns the pub
lie parks over to parades of automo'
biles is itself vicious and immoral ano
ought TO be revised"