PROHIBITION AND THE SUNDAY LAW
A) PROHIBITION, TEMPERANCE AND POLITICS
The Midwestern Protestant values that arrived with the tide of Anglo
immigration in the 1880s altered Southern California in many ways. Politically
the region changed from a traditionally Democratic stronghold to one dominated
by Republicans. Urban business interests replaced agriculturalists as the
guiding influence in the economic life of the area, and Protestant influences
dominated the school board and other civic institutions.
In morals, too, the newcomers attempted to transform Southern California
into a clone of a like-sized area of the Ohio Valley. Gambling, prostitution
and liquor became the targets of civic reformers. Educator-historian James
Guinn reported that the city had one saloon for every 55 residents in 1870. In
1888, with the city's population near 80,000 and saloons limited by ordinance
to 230, the ratio was 1:348. By the end of the decade over fifty towns
actively fought demon rum either through strict regulation or prohibition.
Pasadena was dry, while Pomona imposed a rigid licensing system on saloons,
requiring a $5000 permit plus $500 for a six month license. Other cities had
deed restrictions that limited taverns.
Yet what seemed like a firm policy was but a temporary arrangement in the
ongoing struggle between those who sought total prohibition and those who
rejected government regulation. The anti-alcohol forces were on the offensive
throughout the 'eighties but, badly divided, they were unable to score
permanent victories. Consequently much of the debate centered on differences
within the ranks between uncompromising prohibitionists on the one hand and
temperance reformers who were willing to settle for restrictions that placed
such encumbrances on the sale of liquor that its consumption would be reduced,
especially by the workingclass.
In 1883 the women of Southern California who actively opposed the sale of
alcohol formed a local chapter of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. It
immediately became a powerful force in the ensuing struggle and was in large
part responsible for passage of an 1887 state law mandating what was referred
to as "scientific temperance education" in California's public schools. When
"Samuel" suggested that such laws resulted from the efforts of the old
political parties, Lucy More, a prominent W.C.T.U. member and wife of the Los
Angeles state normal school president, offered a correction.
{Times, Aug. 26, 1888, p. 6}
Prohibition Weaknesses.
Los Angeles, Aug. 20.--[To the Editor of The Times.] I
have been a constant reader of the Los Angeles Censor and the
New York Voice for the past year. Before then I gave the
Prohibition party credit for being sincere, and for having an
honest desire to help to diminish and destroy the use of
intoxicants as a beverage, that is, that it was a temperance
party, but I do not see those desirable qualities manifested
in those papers, and I suppose we may take them to be correct
exponents of the Prohibition party. The whole foundation of
the party, as illustrated by these papers, is falsehood and
hypocrisy, supporting a superstructure of personal hatred,
not hatred of a wrong done, but hatred of the wrong-doer, as
they choose to call all who think differently from them. The
standing statement made in the Censor says that "the old
party platforms and tickets declare for a government of the
people, by the dramshop and for the dramshop and all that
stands behind the dramshop." The Prohibition organizer in
this State, Dr. Goodwin of Illinois, says in the Censor that
absolute or partial prohibition has been secured by the old
parties in 20 States, and high license in all the others but
two, yet he could not name the first State where the
Prohibition party has adopted even partial prohibition.
Quoting again from the Censor, it says that "during the
last five years 26 States besides the National Government
have passed laws requiring the schools under their respective
control to instruct the children in the pernicious effects of
alcohol and narcotics." All this has been done by the old
parties in so short a time, and yet that paper is filled with
the bitterest anathemas for those who choose to work with the
old parties. It is no wonder that old party papers refuse to
go down into such a vile pool of profanity, vulgarity,
falsehood and hatred at the challenge of those who make their
home there.
Yours for our country,
SAMUEL.
{Times, Sept. 2, 1888, p. 9}
Temperance Legislation.
Los Angeles, Aug. 29.--[To the Editor of The Times.] A
writer in The Times of Monday gives the credit to the old
parties of securing the scientific temperance education law
in 26 States and all the Territories, under the national law.
That was not a party question at all. It was a strong plea
of the women for the good of the children, and was granted by
legislators as men, irrespective of party lines. The idea
originated with Mrs. Mary H. Hunt of Boston, a member of the
W.C.T.U., while assisting her son in his study of physiology.
She asked to have that made a department of our work, which
was done. Ever since that time she has worked bravely on,
through many difficulties. Through her influence, directly
and indirectly, the work has been done. In many of the
States it has been done by her personally. The national law,
which includes all the Territories and Government schools,
was the result of her personal efforts. When we wished to
bring the matter before the California Legislature, at its
last session, Mrs. Hunt was otherwise engaged, and the
W.C.T.U. of Southern California sent Miss Emma Harriman, and
that of Northern California sent Mrs. Dorcas Spencer, to lay
the matter before the Legislature. In order to keep it
before them, and see that it should not be overlooked in the
rush of business, the ladies were obliged to stay during the
whole session, but their efforts were crowned with success,
and the bill was made a law by a unanimous vote in both
Assembly and Senate.
L. D. MORE.
Not all who sought liquor reform were enthralled with the work of women in
that direction. Recognizing that hostility, and writing a year before
organization of the local W.C.T.U., "H. W. B." offered an explanation for the
enthusiasm women had for temperance work. Signing his letter with two stars,
"* *," a disgruntled Republican who felt his party's defeat in 1884 resulted
from the uncompromising position taken by prohibitionists zeroed in on
"temperance women." John P. St. John, a former Republican governor of Kansas,
had been the Prohibition party nominee for president that year. Democrat
Grover Cleveland's victory over Republican James G. Blaine was attributed to
the Prohibitionist vote in New York where, according to conventional
interpretations of that election, Republicans dissatisfied with Blaine's stand
on prohibition left their party and voted for St. John in sufficient numbers to
give Cleveland New York's electoral vote and the presidency. Alameda Street,
to which "* *" referred, was notorious for its brothels. Anna McIntosh, a
teacher, offered a terse reply.
{Times, Sept. 27, 1882, p. 3}
Women as Temperance Workers.
To the Editor of The Times:
I ask, is there any moral or mental Salic law by which
the inheritance of brains and capacity goes down in the male
line? and are not our women as likely to be gifted as our
men? and if so, ought they to let their gifts be idle?
Surely not; nor have they. The greatest temperance reform
throughout the world has been brought about by woman's
influence, with man standing at her side with encouraging
words, urging her on to save husbands, brothers and sons from
the demon Rum. Well have they done their work, and to-day
millions of the land rise up and call her blessed. Your
numerous readers will permit me a little gossip in defense of
my sex, and not disparagingly of men either, for the greatest
of God's noble works is, noble man, hence women wish to save
what the All Father formed "after His own image and in His
own likeness," and she steps from the quiet of the fireside
and forgets the soft lullaby for awhile, and joins the clan
of women workers, with one eye resting on the cradle where
reposes her darling boy. As she turns to kiss his sweet
lips, her soul sends up a prayer for his safety from
temptation.
The question is often asked, "Why are the ladies opposed
to the liquor traffic so far in excess of the gentlemen, and
why do they desire to set public opinion against it?"
Answer: It is the evil it produces. It ruins so many
characters. It destroys so many lives. It makes so many
families miserable. It robs the poor man of his wages by
luring him and encouraging him to form an appetite before
whose demands all considerations of prudence and kindness
give way, and work as hard and work as well as he may, and
let him earn as good wages as he will, it keeps him a poor
man by his passion for drink--a passion, we fear, which those
who sell liquor are glad to see fastened upon him.
As to the taxes, the liquor business increases them
enormously. If the matter could be traced out one would find
that nine-tenths of the paupers, who are burdens on the
taxpayer, are made by the use of intoxicating liquors. The
chief of police in San Francisco asserts that nine-tenths of
the arrests for crime were made necessary by liquor drinking.
Is there a Christian woman in the land that could sanction
law breaking by selling liquor on the Sunday? by selling to
confirmed drunkards? by selling to minors? or by attempting
to sell without license? If so, let her come forward. For
many years the State of Michigan endeavored to keep down the
liquor traffic. Two years ago the "iron-clad liquor law" was
passed and enforced. What has been the result? This law
taxes the retail spirit dealers $300, wholesale $500, and
dealers in brewed and fermented liquors $200. The law also
provides that if a dealer fails to pay his tax he shall be
fined from $50 to $100 and sent to jail for ninety days.
Gambling of every kind not to be carried on in the same or
adjoining room to the bar. License not to be given for
selling liquor in a building which is used for theater or
concert hall. The saloons must be kept closed on Sundays,
election days, and legal holidays, and till 7 o'clock the
succeeding morning. What is the result? A success
financially. The tax in some towns being sufficient to pay
all town expenses. In 1875, 4600 saloons paid $437,705
taxes; in 1881, 3953 saloons paid $537,138.
It would be impossible for a person not connected with,
or a temperance organization, to know the enormity of liquor.
Could the "bibber" himself know he would shudder. Not more
than a passing thought is ever given to the subject by those
not directly interested. Go into our mad houses! Go into
the paupers' home! There the story is told. Could every
wife and mother tell to the world how carefully she has
guarded her husband and sons from exposure, hoping thereby to
save and reform them; I say could she--but her heart bleeds,
and in secret she prays, "God turn the rum-seller from his
ways. Aid him to support himself by better means. Help, O
help. In pity aid the weak and take from them the love of
strong drink, and save, O save, my husband and sons; send aid
into every home where fathers, sons and brothers have fallen."
H. W. B.
Los Angeles, Cal., Sept. 25, 1882.
{Times, Sept. 2, 1888, p. 9}
Hot Shot.
Los Angeles, Aug. 25.--[To the Editor of The Times.] By
your permission I desire to express a few opinions concerning
the part women are taking in the prohibition movement. I
will not say they are not honest and earnest in the matter,
but I do say their energies and sympathies are projected in
the wrong direction. Why should men and women expend their
energies outside the Republican party to further the cause of
temperance? What grander moral and political principles can
they ally themselves with to work for "God and Home and
Native Land" than those of the Republican party? But no!
Not satisfied with half a loaf, or to crawl before they walk,
they stupidly and maliciously participated in the shameless
disaster of '84, and drove into political exile the only
American who has had the splendid courage to stand up for
"God and Home and Native Land"--the peerless and matchless
James G. Blaine! The superlative stupidity of a few long-
haired men and short-haired women in the State of New York
reversed the hands on the dialplate of American progress and
morals and placed in the position once occupied by Lincoln,
Grant and Garfield a huge lump of egotistic obesity, and now
in 1888 the signs are too evident that they are leering at
and coquetting with the Democracy, asking for political
concubinage "O what shall the harvest be?"
I wish now to address a word to the temperance women. I
have attended their meetings and observed their methods.
Your entire efforts are extended to rescue intemperate men.
I have seen dirty, drunken vagabonds at your meetings sign
the pledge, put on the blue ribbon. I have seen tears of joy
shed over their supposed conversion. I have known you to put
decent clothes on his back, wholesome food in his stomach,
and money in his purse; whereas, you had better have taken
him to San Pedro, tied a millstone to his neck, and cast him
into the ocean. His kind are not worth a sigh, a song, or a
tear. Men are not asking you to assist them. We are able to
take care of ourselves. Huxley's grand truism meets the
exigencies of mankind: "The fittest survive." It is a
notorious fact that hundreds of women in Los Angeles use
intoxicants to excess. I have seen drunk women in the
streets. Do you temperance women try to rescue them? No.
Let a poor, drunken, bedraggled wretch attend one of your
meetings and how quick she will be excluded. She seeks work,
food, home, shelter. She is thrust from every human door.
She dare not knock at heaven's. But the scoundrel that
wrought her ruin is welcomed with open arms. As a marked
exemplification of their well-intended inconsistency, a few
days ago I was in company with a woman belonging, as I
understood, to the W.C.T.U. Staggering by was a well-dressed
individual, his mouth full of unseemly language. Her eyes
grew dim with pity. "Poor fellow!" she remarked. "What a
sad sight! How nice he seems!" And I believe if she had
been encouraged she would have remonstrated with him then and
there--probably inviting him to attend a temperance meeting,
thus opening the way for an acquaintance. He is a notorious
"mac," and the following day was arrested. A few moments
later an Alameda-street contingent swept by. I saw the flush
of anger mantle her brow, but not a word of pity or
remonstrance for them. I thought--well, I just thought.
* *
{Times, Sept. 9, 1888, p. 2}
Two Blinking Stars.
Los Angeles, Sept. 4.--[To the Editor of The Times.] If
the man who wrote the effusion headed "Hot Shot," which
appeared on the first page of your Sunday's issue, had signed
his name, one statement made therein would doubtless give him
some notoriety as a natural curiosity. Addressing temperance
women, he said, "Men are not asking you to assist them. We
are able to take care of ourselves."
Since when? If Mr. Two Little Stars will study his own
inner consciousness and outward circumstances for about five
minutes he will have to confess that a common man without a
good, temperate mother, sister, wife or daughter, is about as
independent as (pardon the homely old saying) "a hog on the
ice."
A man who has not "a sigh, a song or a tear for the
drunkard;" a man who says, "you had better have taken him to
San Pedro, tied a millstone to his neck and cast him into the
ocean," should not have taken as his emblem anything as near
to heaven as the stars are. It was a star that led the wise
men of the East to that lowly manger where He lay, without
whose love the best of us would be forever undone.
ANNA T. MCINTOSH.
The issue of "high license," a means of restricting the use of alcohol by
imposing extremely costly license fees for the right to sell liquor, sharply
divided the "drys." James Wesley Potts, often referred to as "Prophet" Potts
because of his weather predictions that Newmark claimed were as frequently
wrong as they were right, made the case for those strict prohibitionists who
saw high license as an evil. Potts, who arrived in Los Angeles in 1852 and
later served on the city council, left the Whigs for the Republican party, but
by the 1880s was a Prohibitionist. John C. Sherer, whose name appears
frequently in this anthology and is more fully identified elsewhere, took
exception to Potts' argument. The Times favored high license, and when an
editorial criticized the uncompromising nature of some prohibitionists, "H"
restated the argument against high license.
{Times, May 30, 1888, p. 2}
Gambling and Rum-drinking.
Los Angeles, May 25.--[To the Editor of The Times.] In
your paper of this morning you publish a long article from
the New York Herald, in which it, as well as your own paper,
condemns gambling in the strongest terms, as though it was
the only or greatest evil that infests our fair land. The
Herald says men must be prevented from gambling by brute
force; you express the hope that the raids of the police may
be kept up on gambling dens until gambling shall be too risky
and unprofitable to be entered into even in view of the
enormous profits which this unlawful business gives. What a
difference public sentiment can make between a lawful and an
unlawful business! Just think of the evil that is being done
by making a business lawful that is a thousand times worse
than gambling. A gambler places his money against another
gambler's money, and when one wins all the other has the
money is not destroyed, and the losing gambler has his health
and senses left, and can go to work for more. But when the
rum-dealer gets all of another man's money legally--by
drugging his victim until he is crazy--and the crazy man
kills his wife and leaves his children friendless and goes to
the jail and costs the county $1000, no one urges the police
to crush the rum traffic by brute force, because public
sentiment has made it a legal and legitimate business. I
charge the pulpit and the press with that whole thing, as
they create public sentiment that compels our legislatures to
enact these heathen laws. To them we look as the only hope
for a change of public sentiment. Come out on the Lord's
side and help us--do not strain at a gnat and swallow a
camel-- do not talk about crushing out gambling as an evil
and license the dramshop as a blessing to mankind because
there is money in it. No wonder the inspired writer said the
love of money is the root of all evil. History tells us that
away back in the eleventh century they commenced to license
crime for money. Pope Leo X gave license to those who would
give money to help build the temple at Rome, to murder or
steal, and to commit all manner of crimes, and also remitted
all their past sins, as also all the sins to be committed
during their natural life and this act was not a whit worse
than to license the dramshop, for money although this is done
by a people who claim to have made a thousand year's advance
in civilization and Christianity in a quarter of a century.
Just think of a people whose claim to be Christians,
professing to be led by the teachings of the holy Bible,
which says, "Woe unto him who putteth the bottle to his
neighbor's mouth." Think of them voting to make the rum
traffic a legal, respectable, legitimate business, when
statistics show that in 1863, shortly after the commencement
of the license system, there were less than two gallons per
capita of alcoholic liquors drank in the United States, while
in 1884, after 21 years' trial of high license and taxation,
there were actually 11 1/2 gallons per capata consumed. How
long, oh! Lord, how long will it take to curtail or crush out
this rum traffic at this rate of high license?
I.{J.} W. POTTS.
{Times, June 9, 1888, p. 3}
"Licensing Crime."
Verdugo, June 4.--[To the Editor of The Times.] Noting
a communication in last Tuesday's Times, from J. W. Potts, in
regard to the prohibition question, in which the writer makes
the reckless statement so often indulged in by the
Prohibitionists, that the granting of licenses to sell
intoxicants is "licensing crime," I am constrained to reply.
The fallacy of all prohibition arguments consists in the
willful and persistent confounding of the questions of use
and abuse. The syllogism by which they reach their
conclusion is this: Man commits crime because he gets drunk,
he gets drunk because he is allowed to drink that which
intoxicates. Therefore, prevent him from getting
intoxicating liquor to drink and you prevent the crime! To
the superficial observer this proposition appears logical
upon its face. Let me try another syllogism. A man
perfectly sober (possibly a Prohibitionist), in the heat of
passion, kills with a pistol he has just purchased at the
gunsmith's his best friend. He committed the crime because
he had a pistol, he had the pistol because he was allowed to
buy it at a licensed store. Therefore, had the store not
been licensed to sell deadly weapons, the crime would not
have been committed!
In these two propositions the Prohibitionists will
probably discover a distinction without finding a difference.
The Prohibitionists contend that the drinking of wine or
other intoxicants, mild or strong, is a crime per se, that
is, wrong in itself, whether followed by apparent evil
effects or not. They must claim, to be consistent, that to
this rule (except in rare cases of sickness) there can be no
exceptions; that the solitary inhabitant of a desert island
who drinks the contents of a bottle of wine, which the wave
throws at this feet, is as much of a sinner as he who drinks
it at the "gilded saloon." Or, if they do not claim this,
they must admit that wine drinking is not wrong at all times,
but is wrong under certain circumstances. In this last
proposition, nearly all good citizens agree. If we claim
that the drinking of wine at any time and under all
circumstances is wrong, we condemn the practice of thousands
of good men of the present time, of millions who have lived
in the past, and have doubtless passed to heaven, cast
reflections upon Martin Luther, who was probably wiser than
the most of us, and even reflect by indirection upon the
frequent practice of the Saviour of mankind, for there is no
foundation in fact, for the theory that the wine of Cana and
Gethsemene was different from any other.
In claiming to attack the crime of drunkenness at the
source in striking at the manufacture and sale of liquors,
the Prohibitionists make another mistake, fatal to the
success of the work in which the most of them are engaged.
Instead of striking at the source, they are working away down
near the mouth of the stream, and working as ineffectually as
if with bare hands they attempted to carry mud with which to
dam the onward sweep of water in the Mississippi. The source
of the evil is in the human heart, in the evil desire, and no
mere human law is high enough to reach and stop it.
Drunkenness is a great evil, a great crime, one which can and
should be punished as other crimes are, but wine drinking is
not necessarily a crime, and no human statute can make it so.
The spirit of the Prohibitionists resembles that of the old
Puritans, admirable within certain limits, but impracticable,
a spirit which says to the erring ones: "Why ain't you as
good as I am? Confound you, I'll make you good, anyhow."
The Prohibition movement is by no means identical with
the temperance question. It is a movement accompanied or
preceded by the blare of trumpet and the roll of drum. The
Prohibition party is a political party, and not, as the
majority of its members no doubt believe, a great moral and
God-fearing party engaged in an unselfish work for the
benefit of mankind. How many of the members of the party
believe in their heart of hearts that John P. St. John is a
temperance reformer for aught else than revenue only?
Imagine Peter the Hermit preaching the crusade at $100 per
night. Picture to yourselves Martin Luther promulgating the
gospel of the reformation in the towns of Germany, where he
was guaranteed a certain sum per lecture, and allowing the
rest of the world to go unreformed!
Here is an almost literal quotation from a circular
announcing a lecture by St. John about six months ago, in a
town not 10 miles from Los Angeles: "This is the only town
in the county, outside of Los Angeles, that has sufficient
enterprise and money to secure the services of this eminent
Prohibition orator." The quotation is given from memory, and
may not be exact as to phraseology, but is correct as to the
meaning. This reformer for revenue has just been made
chairman of the National Prohibition Convention at
Indianapolis. If a high license law has failed to decrease
the number of drunkards, in Los Angeles, for instance, let us
remember also that while drunkenness has been on the
increase, so have the advocates of prohibition multiplied.
If prohibition is a true temperance movement, why are not its
good effects visible? The answer is, not because this third
political party is not permitted to make new laws, but
because the members of that party are working only for a
remote and wholesome reform, and are neglecting every day the
numberless opportunities to do good which is close at hand.
High license, nor any other human statute, will never
stamp out drunkenness. But high license and other severe
legal restrictions (such as can be found in the new license
law of Pennsylvania, given to that State by the Republican
party in opposition to the combined efforts of the whisky men
and the Prohibitionists) will reduce the evil to a minimum,
provided that good citizens will attend to the enforcement of
the same. Talking, voting, writing, and attending political
conventions, is not, as a rule, self-sacrificing work, nor in
themselves are they sufficient to reform the world and touch
the great heart of humanity. Francis Murphy has done more
true temperance work and been the instrument under God of
reforming more men than the modern St. John and any half
dozen of his apostles. And yet Francis Murphy is not a
Prohibitionist. As for local option in towns, however, that
is a measure that can only be brought into being by a vote of
the majority, and when the majority of the people want it
they should certainly have it, as, whether effectual or not,
its success or failure in a limited area is easily
demonstrated.
J. C. SHERER.
{Times, Jan. 25, 1889, p. 3}
Against High License.
Santa Ana, Jan. 20.--[To the Editor of The Times.] In
your issue of January 20th, under the title of "Burglary,
Saloons and Prohibition," you accuse the Prohibs of
declaring, "Give us all we ask or nothing, we want no high
license; we want prohibition, and we will vote for nothing
short of it." And again, clasping hands with the Democracy,
"We will stand together and vote down any proposition for the
suppression of the saloon evil that doesn't wipe them out
altogether."
Now, since the campaign is over, Harrison elected in
spite of Democracy, Prohibition, American party, Union Labor,
and all other opponents, the saloon will still continue, and
you, with all other patriotic citizens, compelled to meet and
face the problem of its elimination from the political and
social life, would it not be well to allow the
Prohibitionists to state themselves what they believe and
favor?
(1.) They are in favor of any innocent measure to
destroy, cripple, suppress, restrict or weaken the liquor
traffic.
Second--They are opposed to high license, because (a)
they believe it is a sin to license an evil; (b) the license
money becomes a bribe to taxpayers which they are afterward
unwilling to relinquish, and (c) the restriction of high
license is like the restriction of the waters of the
Mississippi by the jetties at its mouth--it narrows and
deepens the channel so that when the stream of intoxicants
formerly bore many light, weak crafts, it now supports a few
huge and powerful monopolies.
Third--They assert that the statistics from high
license, low license and no license districts prove the
failure of high license as a restrictive measure and its
balefulness as a corrupting influence.
Fourth--They challenge any one to publish these
statistics, and rest the truth or falsity of his theories
upon them.
H.
Whether Republicans, as individuals or as a party, were deeply committed
to prohibition was a nagging question during the 1880s. Of equal concern was
the extent to which the Prohibitionist vote aided the Democrats, which everyone
agreed was a "wet" party, at the expense of the Republicans. In an 1886 Times
op-ed piece Dr. Joseph P. Widney, one of the city's most respected residents,
suggested that the liquor question - the restriction of its manufacture and
sale - should not only become the subject of a Republican party platform plank
but should be the issue around which the party rebuilt itself. "L. W." thought
Widney's analysis made sense. A long-time prohibitionist and one-time
proprietor of the Times, Jesse Yarnell, explained why it would never happen.
Yarnell's mention of the defeat of the Christian Sabbath refers to repeal of
the Sunday Law following election of a Democratic legislature in 1882.
The debate continued in the letters column in 1888 when Prohibitionist
organizer W. R. Goodwin responded to a Times editorial that ridiculed
prohibitionists. Otis printed Goodwin's letter in the editorial column, then
issued one of his longest editorial responses to a letter in the 1880s, making
it quite clear why Republicans like Otis rejected the prohibitionists. Perhaps
in fairness, Goodwin was allowed the last word.
"Tara," a Republican anti-liquor advocate, invoked the argument of black
abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Douglass had been accused of betraying anti-
slavery principles by fighting for the non-extension of slavery into Kansas
when others thought he should have ignored that issue, concentrating his
energies on immediate abolition.
{Times, Dec. 16, 1886, p. 6}
VIEWS OF A PROHIBITIONIST.
Los Angeles, Dec. 15.--[To the Editor of The Times.]
From Dr. Widney's article in Sunday's Times, it may be judged
that he indulges the hope that the Republican party is about
ready to take up the task of suppressing the liquor business.
Will you kindly give place to some reasons why the hope
is not well founded; such reasons, though coming from a
Prohibitionist, not taking the shape of an argument for
prohibition or the prohibition party?
It may be safely conceded that more than half the voters
of California who support the Republican party are favorable
to the suppression of liquor saloons, and that a large
proportion of the other half are so indifferent on the
subject that they would continue to support the party, even
though prohibition were made one of the principal planks in
its platform; yet it is a moderate estimate that at least 10
per cent. of the present supporters of the party in this
State would be its determined opponents immediately upon its
placing itself in open hostility to the liquor interest.
This 10 per cent., taken from the Republican vote and added
to the Democratic vote, as it undoubtedly would be, would
make the State irretrievably Democratic, unless some adequate
gain could be counted upon to make good the loss. This gain
could not be hoped for from the better classes of Democrats,
as some seem to think, for the better class of Democrats,
however anxious they may be to down the liquor traffic, are
still more anxious to down the Republican party, as was shown
by their coming up solidly, Christians and all, to defeat the
Christian Sabbath only that the Republican party might be
defeated at the same time. If their hatred of the Republican
party is stronger than their love for their most loved and
cherished Christian institution, what would induce them to
support that party? Certainly not prohibition. They may be
good and pious, but they are not fanatics.
The Republican party will have no place else to look for
compensation for the loss it would sustain by placing itself
in hostility to the liquor traffic, for even if all the
Prohibition party voters should fly to its rescue, they could
not make good the loss, and in such a case at least one-
fourth of them would go back to the Democracy, from whence
they came.
In view of the circumstances, although a Prohibitionist,
I am not one of those who blame the Republican party, as a
party, for not espousing the cause of prohibition. I may be
a fanatic, but I am not so heartless as to ask a great party
to commit suicide, especially when no good could be
accomplished by the sacrifice. Respectfully,
JESSE YARNELL.
Los Angeles, Dec. 15, 1886.
{Times, Dec. 16, 1886, p. 6}
THE TEMPERANCE ISSUE--VIEWS OF AN OLD-LINE REPUBLICAN.
Los Angeles, Dec. 15.--[To the Editor of The Times.] I
read Dr. Widney's suggestions regarding the little
differences between the two leading political parties with
great interest. It is sound doctrine, through and through.
I have voted the Republican ticket, from Lincoln to
Garfield, but unless they take hold of the demands of the
present day they cannot count on my vote.
My understanding is that the Republican party is a
progressive party, and, as the Doctor says, the last thirty
years of its existence proves it to be so. It is admitted by
all candid people of today that the temperance question is
the most important question now before the American people,
and, I might add, before the whole world. The tariff,
States' rights, and the few other doctrines that the two
parties are trying to ride into power on, sink into
insignificance when compared with the temperance question.
The Republican party in Kansas, Iowa, and some other States,
very judiciously took hold of this all-important question,
and the result was a grand victory. If the Republican party
will not accept this grand opportunity, and advocate good,
sound temperance doctrine, my opinion is that its days are
numbered. To raise up our children to be good, honest,
intelligent, temperate and noble young men and women, is of
far more importance to the country and ourselves than the
tariff and all other little political issues of the day. I
do hope that our grand old party will put a good, sound
temperance plank in their platform, and give us a chance to
still vote with the party that has shown more progress and
done more to build up our country than all other parties
combined.
L. W.
{Times, Mar. 30, 1888, p. 4}
Prohibition and High License.
Los Angeles, March 29.--[To the Editor of The Times.]
In your issue of today you have an editorial that merits
notice. It is so misleading and so full of errors that
ordinary fairness would allow a review of it.
Prohibitionists do not believe that a wine-drinker "is a
great deal worse than the inveterate whisky-guzzler." But if
The Times will candidly answer a few questions it will do all
of its readers a great favor.
What hope have the Prohibitionists of help from the
Republican party?
Can The Times name one leading Republican newspaper in
the United States (including California) that advocates
prohibition?
If the people must be educated up to the views of the
Prohibitionists, who is trying to educate them up? Is the
Republican press trying it? How long would we have to wait
for prohibition if we depended upon the Republican party for
it.
Can The Times name a single State or town where high
license has reduced the number of drunkards or the amount of
drunkenness?
That high license may reduce the number of saloons and
increase the revenue may be admitted. But that is not the
question at issue. What does high license do to decrease
pauperism and drunkenness?
Those questions are asked in all sincerity and fairness,
and if The Times will show that the Republican party in its
platform or press favors prohibition, or that high license
decreases drunkenness, then it may blame Prohibitionists for
not adhering to that party. But if the Republican party does
not favor prohibition, what claims has that party on men who
want prohibition?
We want light, and The Times is too fair a paper to come
into our homes allowing only one side of a great question to
be presented. Yours truly,
W. R. GOODWIN.
The above communication affirms what we stated
yesterday--that the Prohibitionists are striving after the
unattainable, and that they want to have their own way
entirely, irrespective of the wishes of nine-tenths of their
fellow-citizens. They are satisfied with no step in the
right direction. They will have no gradual measures. They
insist upon cramming the pill they have prepared down Uncle
Sam's throat, whether he will or not. They are like the
old-fashioned Presbyterian, who would rather go to hell than
go to heaven through any other church.
Our correspondent says that Prohibitionists do not
believe a moderate drinker is worse than a drunken sot. Then
we can only say that Prohibitionists differ much in their
views, for we have heard that assertion made by men of their
creed, not once, but several times.
What hope have the Prohibitionists from the Republican
party? All the hope they have, or ever can have, in the
world. The Republican party represents the conscientious,
thoughtful, moral element of the American Nation. Whatever
support or assistance the Prohibitionists have received has
come from this party. With which party does the liquor
interest mainly affiliate?
It is true that the Republican party very properly has
refused to commit suicide and end its power for active good
as a party by indorsing the chimerical, impracticable and
impossible programme of the Prohibitionists. The Republicans
say, with all good citizens, that the liquor traffic should
be regulated, licenses for the retailing of liquors given
with great caution and on a limited scale and a close
supervision exercised over such places. Further, if a
decided majority of the citizens in any town desire to
exclude saloons altogether, by all means let them do so. It
is their right and privilege. On the other hand, no minority
has any right to dictate to the majority what they shall eat
and drink.
The Prohibitionists' unreasonableness shows itself in
this, that they make no distinction whatever between the use
and abuse of beverages. They class the drinking of a glass
of wholesome claret or beer at a meal in the same category
with the retailing of drugged spirits in a groggery. It is
all "rum" to them. This is what alienates from them the
sympathy of a large portion of our respectable population,
who are as bitterly opposed as are the Prohibitionists to the
abuse of alcohol and to the omnipresent saloon, but who don't
intend to allow the crank notions of a few peculiar people to
deprive them of the use of a healthy beverage.
If the Prohibitionists would seek to replace the
immoderate use of such stimulants as spirits and strong
coffee by the pure, wholesome wine of the country, or light
beers, they would do more for temperance than they ever will
in their present course. There is no doubt that the
immoderate consumption of fiery spirits and the unnecessary
multiplication of low saloons is an evil in this country
which should be checked. So is the use of morphine and
opium, but no one proposes to close the drug stores on that
account. The continued drinking of strong coffee with every
meal will inevitably ruin a man's liver, but we hear of no
suggestion to abolish grocery stores. Cigarette smoking has
its many victims, but there is as yet no project on hand to
cease licensing tobacconists.
The Prohibitionists want to enforce the views of a
minority as a rule of life for the majority. Such an idea is
illogical, unreasonable and un-republican. It will never
work. This is also an answer to our correspondent's question
as to whether a single leading Republican newspaper in the
United States advocates prohibition. Republicans are, as a
rule, reasoning and reasonable men. They advocate what they
believe to be the greatest good for the greatest number.
Such we believe to be high license and local option, but not
prohibition. Crime should be prohibited, but the man who
says it is criminal to drink a glass of pure light wine at a
meal, after a hard day's work, is a crank.
High license has assuredly been a success wherever tried
in closing up the more disorderly resorts and lessening
crime. This is the unanimous opinion of unprejudiced
observers. Whether it has reduced the number of drunkards is
another question. No one but a fool will imagine that a
drunkard can be reclaimed by removing his usual source of
liquor supply. Neither high license nor prohibition will
remove from a man the chains of a habit acquired, perhaps,
during a quarter of a century, any more than it would an
inveterate smoker or morphine fiend.
This brings us to the question; Does prohibition
prohibit? The universal and overwhelming testimony is to the
effect that it does not. It simply transfers the liquor
trade from the saloon keepers to the druggists, or to other
surreptitious channels of supply, forcing men to become
hypocrites and liars and leading them to substitute liquids
which will intoxicate rapidly for less harmful beverages,
which they would consume if the furnishing of such were not
made a crime. It is well known that in Maine the express
companies derive a large revenue from the carrying of
liquors. Prohibition centers nearer home can also tell
something interesting of the workings of this plan.
You may lead a horse to the water, but you cannot make
him drink. Per contra, you may remove the open supply of
liquor, but a man who wants it will get it, and the whole
community will be imbued with a spirit of un-American
hypocrisy and falsehood in the bargain.
Regulate the liquor traffic, grant licenses sparingly
and at a high rate, seek to substitute wholesome beverages,
containing but a small per centage of alcohol, for the raw
spirit which is now so largely consumed, enact stringent
regulations against the adulteration of liquors, teach in the
schools the evils of the abuse of alcohol, morphine, opium
and nicotine and drunkards will soon be as rare in the United
States as they are in the wine-growing sections of France and
Germany. At present they are almost as numerous as in
Scotland on a Sunday, when all the public houses are
religiously closed.
{Times, April 2, 1888, p. 2}
Sarcasm Without Sense From a Prohibitionist.
Los Angeles, April 1.--[To the Editor of The Times.]
Allow me to thank you for your prompt and satisfactory
answers to my questions. A large number of Republicans in
this county have believed that the Republican party favors
prohibition, but your editorial effectually cures them of
such nonsense. These Republicans will now join the
Prohibition party. Your reply also settled some other
questions. Inasmuch as prohibition does not prohibit, the
liquor dealers now will generally favor prohibition, and thus
sell more than ever and have no license to pay. And as
prohibition does not prohibit, so education does not educate
and Christianity does not christianize. And then all the
gamblers and hoodlums will move into one ward so as not to be
bothered by the police, for if the majority must rule then no
minority has any right to dictate to the majority what they
shall do. You say that all the hope the Prohibitionists have
lies in the Republican party; and, as there is no hope there,
we are in a sad plight. Besides this, Maine had her law at
least 10 years before the Republican party was born, and the
Chicago Tribune says that prohibition originated with the
Democrats. But we are pleased to have your editorial as a
campaign document and we will use it freely, for its
frankness is refreshing and it opens the eyes of Republicans
who, until now, refused to admit that Prohibitionists have
nothing to hope for from the Republican party. Of course
every one not an idiot knows that prohibition does prohibit,
and that no Prohibitionist ever pretended to dictate as to
what a man shall eat or drink. No sane man believes that
high license lessens the amount of drunkenness. But, again,
I thank you for your editorial. Very truly,
M.{W.} R. GOODWIN.
{Times, May 14, 1888, p. 3}
Prohibition.
Los Angeles, May 11.--[To the Editor of The Times.] You
have opened your columns to a great many who have given their
opinions for and against prohibition and high license. Now,
I favor prohibition, and would like to see not only the sale
of liquor forbidden by State laws, but the manufacture
prohibited by constitutional amendment. Without the latter,
prohibition must be at best partial.
As a free lance favoring the cause, let me give my
opinion to the regular army of Prohibitionists. In the
coming election I would say, if by a third party vote you
know you can carry or have a reasonable hope of carrying a
State, county or district, do so. If you cannot, but find by
uniting with one of the older parties you can win local
option or high license, I say by all means do so.
There is no abandoning of principle in this. If you
cannot capture the citadel at the first assault, should you
refuse to take the trenches? If you find it impossible to
abolish smallpox, you quarantine it. I ask you, were those
who, unable to destroy the curse of slavery, forbid the slave
trade and its extension to free States and Territories--were
they palterers with evil?
Follow the example of the Irish Home Rulers, who, while
abating not a jot of their demands, yet accepted all they
could get in the way of installments, as the
disestablishment, land bills, land purchase bills, etc., and
played one party against the other, virtually holding the
balance of power, till now it waits only a dissolution of
Parliament to secure them their demands in full.
Truly yours,
TARA.
B) THE SUNDAY LAW
Closely related to the prohibition movement was an attempt to preserve the
sanctity of the Sabbath. As noted by Sandra Frankiel in her authoritative work
on California's "Sunday Law," Midwestern Protestants migrating to California
considered Sabbath observance to be as much a part of their Christian faith as
temperance, chastity, and education. While gold rush California hardly seemed
a place where the strict observance of Sunday would be a major consideration,
the state legislature in 1855 banned noisy amusements on the Sabbath, enacting
a law similar to those found in states east of the Mississippi River. Three
years later an expanded law closed businesses on Sunday.
The state supreme court struck down the law when a Jewish merchant
successfully challenged it. Reenacted in 1861, the new law was subsequently
challenged by Jews, Buddhists and Seventh Day Adventists. The Adventists did
not object to observance of the Sabbath; they claimed that the legislature had
recognized the wrong day of the week. Eventually the state supreme court, now
led by Chief Justice Stephen Field who had dissented in the previous case,
upheld the 1861 law. For the next two decades the statute stood, although some
Protestant denominations would have broadened it. Historian MIchael Engh notes
that a Los Angeles Methodist conference in 1876 clearly indicated that "The
Lord's Day was not the time for picnics, excursions, social visits, or any
public sports."
Faced with a growing challenge to restrictions on Sunday activities,
authorities responded with wholesale arrests in various parts of the state,
including Southern California. During the spring of 1882, when the crackdown
reached its peak, J. J. Warner published a Times op-ed piece in which he warned
that failure to respect Sunday as a religious day would deter desirable
immigrants from coming to Los Angeles, resulting in an influx of unwelcome
foreigners who were less moral.
Already a "League of Freedom," an organization opposed to restrictions on
Sunday activities, had emerged in California. To Republicans, League members
were "wets," Democrats and foreigners, particularly Germans. Responding to
Warner, "A Native" suggested there were other reasons why it was necessary to
enact Sunday laws. "A German Citizen," however, challenged the view that all
Germans opposed restrictive Sunday legislation. Police Chief Henry King was
the blacksmith referred to in his letter.
{Times, April 6, 1882, p. 3}
A "Native" Endorses Colonel Warner's Argument.
Other reasons than Inducing Moral Immigrants--
Sunday Laws Peculiar to English People.
"He who holds no laws in awe,
He must suffer by the law."
There was a great deal of wisdom and pointed argument in
Colonel Warner's letter on the Sunday law, yet there are
other reasons and arguments in favor of its enforcement than
the mere matter of inducement for moral people to come hither
and pitch their tents on our inviting plains.
Sunday laws are emphatically peculiar to the English-
speaking people, and were first enacted during the reign of
King Athelstane, 950 years ago, and have been prominent on
our statute books to the present day. In all communities in
America, where the people are of English or Scotch origin,
Sunday laws are not necessary, and if on the local statutes
are never enforced because they are never violated. The
proper observance of the Sabbath is so engrafted in the
hearts of the English speaking people, as to amount to a
sacred tradition, nay, more, it is our religion. An American
may forget his creed, may lose his moral identity, but he
never forgets his respect for the holiness of the Christian
Sabbath, because it is the first lesson taught him by his
mother. It is only in communities where the foreign element
largely preponderates, that laws and the enforcement thereof,
become necessary to maintain a proper observance for this
time-honored American idea. The "League of Freedom,"
composed in the main of foreigners, not only defy our laws,
but insult our religion. It may be that our laws are wrong
and that our religious idea of Sabbath observance is a
humbug, a thing which should be abolished, and to that end
the League has been formed. I heard a member observe that
"we will repeal the law." I heard another remark, "we will
repeal the Constitution of the United States." Now what
these two persons meant by these observations I am not
prepared to say, but this much I for one am willing to
maintain, and that is the "League of Freedom" and its leaders
are treading on very dangerous ground in pursuing their
present course, because it may become at some time necessary
for them as a body and as individuals to invoke the law in
their favor and those who defy the law may become embarrassed
in claiming protection from the law.
Many Americans have been heard to observe in these
latter days that "if a robber should despoil a member of the
league, and should they be called upon to sit on a jury to
judge the culprit, they would find him not guilty on general
principles." We know that as compared with the class of
people that compose the "League of Freedom," the ordinary
native is a barbarian and needs reforming and while willing
to admit the undoubted ability of the flaming leader of the
league to accomplish that end in his own good time and
pleasure, still we may hazard the assertion that the natives
will not submit thereto without a more violent protest than
this of
A NATIVE.
{Times, April 7, 1882, p. 2}
A Protest from the Germans.
Editor of the Times: The League of Freedom has
published its determination to resist the law of the State.
The Southern California Post especially made itself prominent
in the present movement regarding the Sunday law. It claims
the German element is against the Sunday law. In this the
editor is greatly mistaken. There is a large number of
German citizens in favor of the enforcement of this law, of
which more than nine-tenths of that number do not belong to
any church. They are law-abiding citizens, and do not bring
into contempt the Governor, Judges, and all the executive
officers of our State. That paper, a week ago, abused our
Chief of Police. It stated he was better fitted to work in
his blacksmith shop, than fill that office, because he was
faithfully performing his duty. It also stated that the
Chief of Police was indebted to German influence for his last
election, and that he would be left out in the cold next
time. It also ridiculed our Supreme Judges for deciding the
law to be constitutional. No wonder that a number of our
German friends are opposers of a Sunday law, with such a
teacher and elevator of public morals.
A GERMAN CITIZEN.
Public reaction to the law's enforcement was negative. In the 1882 state
election, voters gave the anti-Sunday Law Democrats a legislative majority and
they repealed the law the next year. That ended statewide Sunday closure
efforts although local governments, by ordinance, would continue to restrict
activities on the Sabbath. Los Angeles, for example, adopted an ordinance that
kept saloons shut on Sunday. Two 1887 letters indicate that taverns were not
the only target of the Sunday Law movement.
{Times, May 11, 1887, p. 10}
Down on Sunday Trains.
Pasadena, May 8.--[To the Editor of The Times.] The
solemnities of public worship at one our churches were
considerably delayed this morning, owing to the fact that the
expected preacher, an eastern delegate to the Young Men's
Christian Association Convention, did not arrive until the 11
o'clock train. In the address, which he plunged into at
once, he reflected somewhat upon the bridge which had brought
him safely over, for in illustrating the depravity of
business men generally, he said: "If they have anything to do
on Sunday, off they go on the train this morning--there was
such a crowd." This remark ought to have weight with the
railroads in inducing them to carry only religious teachers
on Sunday.
S. W. R.
{Times, Dec. 6, 1887, p. 2}
Street Fakirs.
Los Angeles, Dec. 4.--[To the Editor of The Times.] It
seems about time that the city authorities should call a halt
when taking into consideration such Sabbath-breaking
nuisances as the side show on Main street near First. All
day long the fakirs at the door have been yelling at the
passers-by to come in and see the "greatest show on earth,"
and when they were not yelling the screams of Punch and Judy
on the inside could be heard a block away. The sidewalk has
been blockaded all day in front of the tent, and it has been
very embarrassing and annoying for ladies going to and from
church to have to force their way through a crowd of loafers.
It is nothing but a ten-cent side show fake, and it is a
disgrace that the authorities should allow such an affair to
be run on Sunday.
Yours respectfully,
A RESIDENT.
George Telfair, on the other hand, represented Christians who questioned
"A Native's" historical argument for restrictive laws and even challenged the
religious base for such legislation. His letter responded to a series of
"Sunday-rest law" meetings conducted in California by Dr. Wilbur F. Crafts, a
New Yorker who was secretary of the American Sabbath Union. The Times devoted
nearly five full columns to a report of his Hazard's Pavilion meeting, which
drew an audience estimated at 5500.
{Times, Sept. 1, 1889, p. 6}
The Sunday Question.
SCRIPTURE QUOTED FOR A NOVEL PURPOSE.
Los Angeles, Aug. 23.--[To the Editor of The Times.] In
your issue of the 22d inst. I noticed a request to all
preachers who have not yet preached on the Sabbath question
to do so on next Sunday. As I desire the city of Los Angeles
for a congregation, I trust you will permit me to occupy the
Times pulpit. My text is found in Romans xiv., 5: "One man
esteemeth one day above another, another esteemeth every day
alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind."
Paul certainly believed in religious liberty. That he
had no reverence for the superstitious observance of days is
evident from Romans ix., 10-11: "Ye observe days and months
and times and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have
bestowed upon you labor in vain." In his epistle to the
Colossians, he is still more emphatic: "Let no man,
therefore, judge you in meat or in drinks or in respect of a
holy day or of the new moon or of the Sabbath days" (11-16).
The tenor of Paul's teaching is opposed to the sabbatarian
idea. In fact, all the New Testament writers agree with
Paul. They enumerate at length, in several places, all kinds
of sins, but fail to say one word about Sabbath-keeping as
binding, and I challenge Dr. Crafts to show where any of the
New Testament writers ever found fault with anybody for not
keeping the Sabbath.
One of the charges made against Christ by the Jews was
the he was a Sabbath-breaker. John, the favorite disciple,
admits that Jesus had broken the Sabbath: "Therefore, the
Jews sought the more to kill him, because he had not only
broken the Sabbath but said also that God was his father."
(John v., 18.)
Jesus went with His disciples in the fields on the
Sabbath and gathered corn. (Mark II., 23.) When the Jews
reproved them, Jesus told them that "the Sabbath was made for
man." (II., 27.)
Such a Sabbath as Dr. Crafts advocates is not only
anti-Christian but unconstitutional. For hundreds of years
after Christ there was no such thing as a Christian Sabbath.
Sir William Domville says, in speaking of this subject:
"History does not furnish us with a single proof that Sunday
was observed as the Sabbath previous to the edict of
Constantine, A.D. 321." (Six Texts, p. 241.)
The Christian Sabbath was made by man, and as an
institution of the church is all right for those who are
"fully persuaded in their own minds;" but that there is any
more sacredness attached to Sunday than to any other day is a
superstition, and any attempt to enforce {illegible} would
surely fail.
{[illegible} the object of this Sabbath agitation can
become a law Dr. Crafts must show that Martin Luther did not
know what he was saying when he said, "As regards the
Sabbath, or Sunday, there is no necessity of keeping it."
(Michelet's Life of Luther, book 4, chapter 2.) "If anywhere
the day is made holy for the mere day's sake, if any where
any one sets up its observance upon a Jewish foundation, then
I order you to work on it, to dance on it, to ride on it, to
feast on it, to do anything that shall reprove this
encroachment on the spirit of Christian liberty." (Luther's
Table Talk.)
I can furnish much more similar testimony from the
church's most eminent defenders, but space forbids. In
closing let me say, that the reason the church so
persistently advocates this fraudulent institution is because
she has drifted away from Christ, and it is to fill her empty
seats and swell the collections that she would close every
avenue to social enjoyment and rational happiness, and make
for us a gloomy prison of the day which Jesus said was made
for man, and which if spent with those we love, in the
Cathedral not made with hands, listening to Nature's priest
and choirs that sing in the green-clad boughs their untaught
psalms, would lift our hearts to better things.
GEORGE B. TELFAIR.
Was the Sunday Law in the interest of working men and women? Three
Angelenos debated that issue in the letters column in September, 1889, after
Craft's meetings led to a call for restoration of restrictive Sabbath
legislation. In an argument that carried a tinge of the class struggle, "B. R.
G." viewed such laws as a violation of the welfare of working people. "A
Seventh Rest Day" claimed Sunday laws directly benefited workers. Old Jesse
Butler, veteran of the labor movement yet sympathetic to the church's concern
that man should set aside a time for God, offered what was, for 1889, a rather
utopian idea: two days a week without work; one for God and one for the worker.
In fact, the gradual move to a shortened workday on Saturday won support from
clergymen who believed, as did Butler, that workers would be more likely to
attend church on Sunday if another day were set aside for their own pursuits.
{Times, Sept. 9, 1889, p. 5}
A Sunday Law.
A WORKINGMAN'S VIEWS.
Los Angeles, Sept. 4.--[To the Editor of The Times.] It
is a noticeable point that a careful perusal of the report of
the Sunday-law convention in Tuesday's Times reveals the fact
that with but one or two exceptions all the speakers in favor
of the law have Rev. attached to their names, and whose
business it is to work for hire on Sunday. The amount of
extra sympathy developed for the working people, and the fear
they would be worked too hard and too long, would be all
right and proper if it were expended on the six days of toil
and not made an excuse for depriving them of needed
recreation. To an unprejudiced, thoughtful and earnest
well-wisher of the toiling masses--whose condition at the
best admits of very little recreation or pleasure--it would
seem unjust and cruel to deprive them of their only day of
rest and amusement, the only day they have to visit the
fields, mountains, ocean, or meet in social intercourse. Is
it judicious or right to punish many for the sins that may
have been committed by the few upon Sunday excursions? To
the liberal, fair-minded man the whole move has a look of
pure selfishness; that the Revs. were afraid of losing their
grip on the people, and that forcing people to stay at home
would fill their churches and contribution boxes on Sunday.
Why is it any worse for the laborer to carry on his
trade on Sunday than for the preacher? Why ask the one to
lose his day and pay the other for his, when both learn their
trades and work for the same object--pay? What do these
censors of public morals mean by a day of rest? Is it
absolute cessation from all bodily exercise, complete
idleness of mind and body? It would seem so from the
onslaught made upon the Sunday papers.
The time was in this country when Sunday laws were
vigorously enforced, when for a man to kiss his wife on
Sunday was a crime, and to be caught on the public highway,
except going and coming from church, was a heinous offense.
Do these reverends wish to go backward to those good old
times? Not one of them dare go into their pulpits and preach
the doctrines taught then. Why, then, should the people be
forced back into puritanical ideas and theories, except it be
to legalize the ascendance of the church over the minds and
free will of the toil-worn masses.
If it is the real welfare of the working people that is
aimed at, would it not benefit them much more to look into
their condition and means of living in the six working days
than in trying to deprive them of their one day of pleasure
and recreation? The hand of poverty is heavy enough to bear,
coupled with ceaseless toil for a bare subsistence, without
being supplemented by the hand of the church, with nothing
offered as a substitute except a back seat in a fashionable
church, with a dry sermon warranted not to disturb the tender
conscience of the lawyer, money-lender or bondholder, whose
interest is working as hard on Sunday as any other day, while
the poor toiler on the back seat has been deprived of his
opportunity of earning or enjoying the same day though it is
only through the fruits of labor this interest can or will be
paid. The day has passed, never to return, when religious
intolerance can show its hydra head and control the
consciences of free-born American citizens, or when, by law,
a man may not take his family into the country or to the
ocean or mountains and pass his Sunday in any way it may
please himself, and not injure his fellow-man or his
property. Shut up the saloons if you like; that is all
right, but don't seek to stop the masses from amusing
themselves in an orderly excursion, bathing or other innocent
recreation because it is Sunday.
B. R. G.
{Times, Sept. 13, 1889, p. 5}
Sunday Observance.
"A MINISTER'S REPLY TO A WORKINGMAN."
Los Angeles, Sept. 9.--[To the Editor of The Times.]
Although unnecessary for me to say one word in defense of the
Christian ministry, assailed by opponents of a Sunday law, I
wish such as your correspondent in today's Times to know
that, whether he thinks so or not, workingmen have no better
friends on earth than the ministers he criticises. They want
a Sunday law because workingmen need it--because the lack of
it tends to the ruin and beggary of the country. It has been
proved abundantly that six days at a stretch is as long as
either man or beast can work long without suffering; and,
therefore, to save the workingmen, his wife and children from
the curse of continuous labor, ministers will do all they can
to secure the Sunday law.
But he seems to say that the ministers' chief work,
preaching, should also be stopped on the Sunday because it is
his "work"--work for which he is paid. He knows, or should
know, as most workingmen certainly know well, that the
ministers' work of the Sunday is just as right and proper as
other people's rest is proper on that day; and that were the
ministers to rest instead of preaching he himself would be
one of the first to censure and condemn him for it. And he
is equally mistaken when he would argue that the ministers
concerned wish or seek to bring about one iota of "religious
intolerance;" ordinary work on the Sunday, with Sabbath
desecration, are the sources of the most and worst
intolerance of the day. Why must the railway hand, the
street-car hand, the poor jaded hack, or any other six-day
worker, be robbed of the day of rest? It is simply
impossible to run street cars or railways on the Sunday
without depriving many persons of the rest-day, and "A
Workingman" would seem to wish to make such men work
forever--Sunday and week day--simply that he and others like
him may have their mere amusements!
I feel certain of one thing, viz., that "B. R. G." did
not himself hear Dr. Crafts argue the Sunday law question, or
he would never have written his letter. I repeat, ministers
are among the workingman's best and truest friends.
A SEVENTH REST DAY.
{Times, Sept. 18, 1889, p. 3}
Jesse H. Butler on Sunday Observance.
Los Angeles, Sept. 13.--[To the Editor of The Times.]
As I see you have allowed a workingman to say a few words
about the Sabbath rest, and then a minister to answer, I
would like to take a hand in and between the two, supposing
you will allow another workingman to do so.
I believe in a Sabbath of rest, in a religious Sabbath,
and a week ago last Monday evening was in hopes of a chance
to tell the ministers there how the workingman could and
would keep said day of rest, when speaking in the pavilion on
that subject; but about when I came to that point, they
hinted that my time was up. Now when the ministers
occasionally stray into a workers' meeting, they are always
given plenty of time, even when their given time is up; would
it not be well for these gentlemen to show themselves as
liberal as the common workers in giving them the same chance
where the rostrum is changed?
The truth lies between these two writers--these two
classes; and until they both understand each others'
condition and position, by a more familiar and frequent
intercourse with and toward each other, there will be no good
come of the religious Sabbath rest, no matter what laws you
may make on that important subject.
Now, it is a fact, that the Greek Church has 52 Saints'
days in the year, which gave even to the serfs of Russia two
rest days a week, including Sunday--that is to say, they kept
one day to do as they pleased, in visiting or making home
comfortable. The Sunday was kept as a holy day; the Saint's
day as a holiday. Now ought not a free born or naturalized
American citizen to have as much rest as a Russian serf?
If the ministry cannot appreciate the abstract right,
let me ask another question--do they really want the worker
to keep a holy, religious, church-going day of rest? I do;
but I never more expect to see them do this in any great
number until you give them by law and custom a holiday to
enjoy themselves outside of the church, in any innocent
enjoyment with their families, as they may think best; and I
trust many of the ministers have lived long enough to be
fully convinced of this fact by common every Sunday
observation. Let the ministers advocate this, and when the
other rest day shall come, besides Sunday, as a result of
their labors for that end, they will obtain the appreciation
and admiration of the workers, who shall fill their
sanctuaries to overflowing.
Religion is natural, if you give a man a chance to be
religious; especially to the poor man, who feels every day
his dependence on the hand that gives the daily bread. This
is the great class that needs Sunday; give it to him,
gentlemen of the ministry and of the law, and the workers and
the ministers will be happy together in the great
congregation, and in their mutual homes, neglect to do this
and you ministers will go down the ages, groaning and
grunting, like so many Jeremiahs, about the sins and
impieties of the rulers and the people.
I do not wonder at the bitterness of tone of the
Workingman's letter in The Times to the ministers.
They are appealed to by the ministers to keep holy
Sabbaths, to build churches and support the expense and
services of the sanctuary; but no messenger of God comes to
their homes, their shops and to their public meetings and
assemblies to bid them God speed, and say unto them, "What
then we do for you brothers and children of {illegible} your
wages, in the hours of labor, and in inducing the men of
money to be liberal to you and to keep you all to work, and
to make you and your families well to do and happy?"
I have worked for forty years, you gentlemen of the
ministry, to induce the multitudes to come and hear the sweet
songs of Zion, and you know your churches would soon be empty
without these songs, and now I claim the privilege of talking
to you, not for myself, but for the masses who are my fellow
workers.
My own impression is that the extra day of material rest
should be on Monday, as the multitudes would come to the
church first, and there, besides worshiping God, receive
advice from their preachers as to how they had best keep the
rest day, or holiday, in innocent and useful recreations, and
as a credit to themselves and families as proud and
intelligent citizens of the great Republic. Respectfully,
JESSE H. BUTLER.