The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-02-13

servance Dr. A. J. Dickinson has
 written the following:
 To the Editor of The Age Herald:
 Your selection from your notable contributions to the Sunday observance question" of the article of Rev. Dr. Eaves on Sunday Laws, the Gospel and a Square Deal" exposes the well known tactical skill of that master of disputation. He throws up his breast works, marshals his rapid fire guns; and invites the enemy to attack where he has fortified. But it so happens that he is not in the line of our drive at all; and but for the fact that his article is an ambush attack on the evangelical ministers of the city in the interest of perpetuating the mo- nopoly of privilege recently to the movie merchants granted, it should. of course, be ignored by us. What Dr. Eaves thinks of us or what we may think of him, is matter of no inter- est to the public. But his article has little or nothing to do with our Sunday laws or the gospel or a square deal, as these are involved in the proposed new law; for if the reader will com pare the two laws he will see that it is the new one which really institutes an American Sunday, gives some open door for the gospel to run and be glorifitd in our life, and offers a square deal to all interests affected. The old law does none of these things.
 But his article is the same old special pleading of special interests for the re- tention of their special privilege; with the which we have become so fa- miliar in recent struggles with the saloon. It is exactly the same old fight. The saloon as a business en- joyed a special privilege granted 1t by law, and prohibited to all others, of monopolizing the sale of liquors. The first section of every license bill was 8 law prohibiting the sale of liquors to all not holding the license; and the next section was to grant the right to sell, just prohibited to the general public, to holders of license exclusively. Thus was given to the licensed saloon the exclusive right to do business in the sale of liquors, a monopoly privi- lege So in the first section of the present Sunday law all worldly busi- ness Is prohibited (except drug stores and cigar and news stands) and in the 
 that day is given card blank to the movie merchant exclusively. The situa- tion is identically the same before the law, and the movie merchants are using the same arguments as the sa loon did and a similarly conducted campaign, with largely the same troops and officers, I suspect The saloons pleaded to have the cause of temper ance turned over to them to be well regulated" as they enjoyed exclusively the right to conduct it under the law and enjoy its rich emoluments: so also the movie merchant is asking that Sum- day be put in his keeping to be Enlightened up" with his yellow by his high grade pictures" So it has come among us as a specially privileged i'm stitutiion like the saloon.
 Now the saloon found it necessary to go into politics with it's attorneys and other retained agents in order to hold its special privilege due to discriminative and special legislation and in the same way and for the same end the movie merchants are now enmeshed in city pol itics for the retention of their exclusive privilege of monopolzng the business of selling Sunday amusements to the public. They claim to be bringing to their shops many people on Sunday, being "the poor mans theatre" just as the saloon was the poor mans club" and aver that they
 
 from doing a seven days bushes on a six days license. Now I predict that they will soon advocate high license,' for unless they do there will be movies in the suburbs and elsewhere, which will develop into competition and other com tplications. Also just as the saloon. abus- ing it's exclusive grant of power in doing business raised the price of liquors to tenfold more than it was before they got through their special privilege; so also when these factious preachers let up on them, the movies will raise prices also to the poor working man" for his sab bath draft of pleasure from the screen Just as the saloon lined up with the newspapers having very profitable ad- vertising from the necessities of their business in corralling the people to be edified in their "clubs,'' also the mo- vies can hardly operate the poor man S theatre" without much advertising, and the chord between the advertising col umns of the average modern newspaper and its editorial and reportorial columns is very close. And in all these battles with the saloon our good friend was just as conscientious as he is now towards the movie-merchant's exclusive privilege, and these same evangelical pastors were then equally pestiferous in his righteous eyes. He made notable contri- buttons to your columns then, equally as foreign to the issues involved as this to the cause of the Sunday monopoly for