The Oroville weekly gazette. [volume] (Oroville, Wash.) 1905-19??, 1914-03-27
1T HASN'T CHANGED

history VI carly ANO" LhoieAN' "A
under the domination of Puritan and
Pilgrim. how narrow, bigoted, and alb
surd the fanatical zeal of our pain
fully good and uncompromisingly
sturdy forefathers seemed in their at
tempts to regulate the moral and So
cial conduct of the community by law?
We were wont to smile with a SUI
perior air of greater wisdom when we
read of the whipping post, the duck
ing stool, the pillory, the laws suppress
sing every form of Sunday recreation,
the compulsory attendance at church,
the prohibition of exhibitions of af-
lection between man and wife at re-
union after separation because of alb
sence on travel or for any other reas-
on. The intolerance of such laws and
their utter futility struck us as be-
longing to an age of ignorance and
superstition, little removed from the
primative; an age that was buried in
the progress of centuries, the condi-
tons of which could never return
because of the increase of intelligence
and the corresponding growth of toll
erance, respect for personal rights
and individual opinion and disposition.
The guarantees of the rights of speech,
thought and action within the bounds
of common reason that were later
placed in the federal constitution,
seemed an emphatic protest against
the insufferable, petty meddling of the
ostentacious zealots in the private and
personal affairs of men, and these
guarantees promised a relief from the
deadening restraints of prejudice and
fanaticism through PROSECUTING stat
utes that drove men from religion
instead of accomplishing the ends they
aimed at.
In reading about these things in our
histories, it seemed that the three CEN
turtles that had passed between the
school days had put an end to such
follies, especially since history had
demonstrated that men had not been
made more devout, or that the virtues
of honesty, fairness and brotherly love
had not been increased by such means.
Since there was no evidence that the
Puritan descendent of today was bet
ter because his forebears had been
hedged about by statutory standards
of morals and conduct, or possibly had
been pilloried, whipped and driven to
church, it seemed impossible that in
this supposedly Enlightened age there
could again be resort to such rudi-
methods of propagating NOR
atty. 1t seemed that human nature
assuredly had progressed little way
to that plane where one set of men
would not presume to say to another
set of men eve are holier than thou,
and We are sorely grieved by your
failure to do reverence to our inter-
probation of Mosaic law and Hebraic
and, therefore, we propose
that you shall be compelled to do as
we think fit and proper"
Yet, in the light of all experience;
in the midst of this marvellous TWEEN
tieth century, pulsating with progress
and expansion in every line of human
endeavor; in spite of all the facilities
for acquiring education, for the spread
of intelligence, in an environment and
an atmosphere that ought to broaden
and free every intelligence from the
of a dead and distant past,
human nature still wears it's unvary-
ing way down the same narrow groove
that has confined and contracted it's
since the dawn of record
ed history.
The same meddlesome officiousness,
the same fanatical unreason, the same
unaccountable bigotry, the same hypo-
critical Pharisaism that impelled our
hard-headed New England forefathers
to attempt to enforce by statute their
peculiar ideas of propriety and relig
ious conduct, are impelling men of to-
day throughout this country, suppos-
edly dedicated to liberty and freedom,
to enforce their own peculiar ideas and
notions on their fellows. This strange
characteristic of human nature is not
ably in evidence in one particular little
community of this state that has won
It nationwide reputation for progress.
In Wenatchee the dominating element,
having full and unchecked sway, or
dams that Sunday shall be a sombre,
dull, dreary, dreadful day. All the
recreative amusements designed to en-
terrain and revive busy, weak-worn
people are prohibited on this arbitrary
Sabbath. No movies, no base ball, no
sports or pleasures common to healthy,
normal Americans, are permitted-not
even trap shooting for the few who de-
light in taking the one opportunity
open to them by reason of their bust
ness cares to indulge in this innocent
pastime. This high handed and auto
cratic violation of the personal rights
of the individual Is not the ukase of
an unbridled despot, but the expression
OF majority under pure, recall-ref-
erendum-initiative democracy.
Perhaps, sometime. in the ages &c
come, men will learn that no code Of
civic law or system of statutory pro-
hibitions that may he devised by them
can succeed in dolrg what the laws
of God and the beautiful and lofty
teachings of the .tesslah fail to ac-