Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1915-02-24
Sabbath Keeping and Crime:

Sabbath Keeping and Crime.
Some years ago the New York
Journal of Commerce gave this tes-
timony as to the Sabbathless work
ers on the Erie canal: Thousands
of men and boys have become vi
cious and debased beyond almost
any other of our population, and
they have impaired their own char
acters to the contamination and ruin
of other thousands. They furnish
one-half of the prisoners at Auburn.
This would never have been the
case if the Sabbath had been.o OBJ
served on tn, canals"
Field Fowler, when proprietor OF
the Metropolitan horse railway Of
Boston, said of the financial aspects
of Sunday cars: 1t is impossible to
get honest men and keep them SO
and make them work on Sundays.
You employ them to violate the
fourth commandment and expect
them to respect the eighth; you find
human nature is such that both con.
ductors and drivers suffer. Drivers
become reckless and mere accidents
result"
Those who have been Indifferent
to the desires or the moral and
physical welfare of men on the
great railway lines should read the
dignifed and pathetic plea made
by 45o locomotive engineers on the
Vanderbilt lines for the cessation
of Sunday labor" which is IN part
as follows: "This never ending labor
ruins our health and prematurely.
makes us feel worn out like old
men, and we are sensible of our in
ability to perform our duty as we'll
when we work to excess. The Gus
toms of all civilized countries, as
we'll as all laws, human and divine,
recognize Sunday as a day of rest
and recuperation, and notwithstand-
ing intervals of rest might be ar
ranged for US on other days than
Sunday, we feel that by so doing
we would be forced to exclude our.
selves from all church, family, and
social privileges that other citizens
enjoy.
Nearly all the undersigned have
children that they desire TO have
educated in everything that will.
tend to make them good men and
women, and we cannot help but see
that our example in ignoring the
Sabbath day has a very demoraliz-
ing effect upon them"
That petition has been rightly.
called classic in the Literature of
capital and labor" and the refusal.
to grant it will come up for judg-
ment in the great day of final reck-
oning. One railroad man sald:,
Sunday is the saddest day in the
week" Another exclaimed with
tears in his eyes, in response to
words of sympathy; Those cursed
Sunday trains!"
Bennett Young, president of the
Louisville, New Albany and Chica-
go railway wrote a letter to the Rail
way Age of Chicago, in which he
stated: The laws of God and the
laws of man are conclusive on this
point, forbidding labor ION the Sab
bath day; and every railway mana
ger operating a road on that day
violates human and Divine COM
mand, and by forcing his employees
TO do the same sets before them a
continued example and practice Of
the disregard of the highest obliga-
tions. When you consider how these
men from fear of losing their places,
are compelled to do this labor
(much of which is totally unneces-
sary), it becomes a monstrous wrong
against the religion and family
rights of these employees. %
Dwight L. Moody said: Il be-
lieve that the Sabbath is the work.
ing-man's day of rest, and unless
we stand up for it, it will be the
same here as in France, where capi-
talists have taken the Sabbath and
make men work"
The repeated appearances of train
auditors on the railway lines cross
ing Iowa indicate a suspicion of
moral declension in their employees,
by the officials, of the operating
companies. How much this decay
of conscience has come about
through the compulsory violation
of tho fourth commandments an1