Newark leader. ([Newark, Ohio]) 1917-1946, 1922-04-07
More Blue Laws
DRASTIC BILL INTRODUCED IN
CONGRESS
Would Make Conditions i'm District of
Columbia Even More Stringent
Than Those of New England
Two Hundred Years Ago

A new compulsory Sunday observ-
ance bill was introduced into Congress
by Congressman Fitzgerald of Ohio,
at the instigation of the Pastors Fed.
Grafton of Washington City, the Lords
Day Alliance, the National Reform
Association and the Methodist Board
of Temperance and Moral Reform.
This bill is the long promised Sunday
measure put forth by the Sunday law
advocates which is to close up every
thing tight in the District of Colum-
bia and is to serve as model Sunday
law for the whole nation. 1t forbids
all kinds of Sunday work except work
of necessity and charity" in the first
section of the BILL and in the third
section, it limits even work of "neces-
sity and charity" to six days of the
week and expects only household serv-
ice on Sunday. Neither an individual
nor a firm can carry on or perform
works of necessity and charity on
Sunday, unless "he or it' shall forbid
their employees doing such work on
succeeding day.
The bill specifically closes on Sun
day all "places of public assembly or
amusement for secular purposes" and
also unlawful sports," but does not
define what are lawful sports. Natur-
ally and logically unlawful sports"
are already prohibited by law, because
they would not be unlawful unless
some law made them so, and it does
not seem necessary to enact another
law to declare them unlawful.
If one law does not work
another would make things still
worse. No exemptions are made in
the bill for those who observe another
day than Sunday as a day of worship
and rest, and thus the Jews and
Seventh Day Adventists and Seventh
Day Baptists would be compelled to
observe two days each week.
| If this bill should become law in
the District all unnecessary labor
would have to stop on Sunday, and ex
ira help would have to be provided for
necessary and charitable work on Sun
| day. This would mean that a new
set of people would have to be Sc
lected to release the fire department
men, the police department, the edit
ors and employees of the newspapers,
the newsboys and vendors, the clerks
in the ticket office of railway stations,
the conductors and brakemen, the en-
gineers and firemen on the railroads,
those in the factories, government Of
fees, and apartment houses and pri-
vate dwellings, the night watchman.
the telegraph operators, the bakers,
the restaurant employees, the sur
geons, physicians, and nurses, the
druggists and pharmacists, the cleo
tllc;ans and wiremen, the dairy en-
ployees, the janitors in public and
private dwellings, the BARRIERS and
bootblacks, the hotel employees, the
automobile chauffeurs, the garage
men and gasoline statesmen. in fact
the congregation who had only one
pastor whose duties kept him occupied
seven days each week, would be OBJ
llged to hire second pastor to relieve
him on Sundays. If the bill becomes
a law it will transport us hack to the
Puritan times, when they imprisoned
the cat for catching mice on Sunday,
when they put husbands in the stocks
for kissing their wives on Sunday,
when they rolled their cider barrels
out of the cellar because they refused
| e' SCdoS WOIhlIls5 Ou Ouuudy.
The penalties attached to the pro-
visions of this Sunday bill for the
violation of any Of it's prohibitions
range from SIS to $500, with six months
in Jail on the side.
Every lover of religious liberty and
of the constitutional rights to worship
God in harmony with the dictates of
his own conscience, should take alarm
at these encroachments upon his con-
science, and should send vigorous
protest to his representative in Con-
gres, to use his influence to defeat
this Sunday bill entitled H. r. 9753.
The religious forces behind this
Sunday bill are planning big cam.
palgn to flood Congress with peti-
tlons favoring its passage. The Re-
liglous Liberty Association. and the
Anti-Blue Law League of America
are planning to meet the issue in a
vigorous opposition campaign. The
issue promises to be a lively one on
both sides. Religious legislation of
this nature should be turned down
with an overwhelming defeat. Human
rights and religious liberty are in
danger.
Evidently DR.. Bowlby, the secretary
of the Lords Day Alliance, who is
backing this drastic Sunday bill, is
trying to make good his threat, that
he proposed, "by legislation, to make
it easier for people to go to church."
He said, "If We take away mans
motor car, his golf sticks, his Sunday
newspaper, his horses, his pleasure
steamships, amusement houses, and
parks, and prohibit him from play
ing outdoor games or witnessing field
sports, he naturally will drift back to
church."