Sunday and Sabbath

The House Committee on the District of Columbia last week held hearings on the Lankford bill, which is proposed by the Lord's Day Alliance to make Washington the model city of the country. The bill would close all stores, theatres, cinemas and baseball parks on Sundays, preventing all work not absolutely necessary, and anyone who infringed its provisions would be subject to a $500 fine and six months' imprisonment.

The advocates of the bill were reported to have been shocked when they entered the committee room and found several Congressmen smoking. Rev. Charles Wood of Washington made a passionate appeal for the bill, and turning his back on the committee he made his peroration to his followers.

Congressman Robert G. Houston, who was for three years President of the Delaware State Sunday School Association, interrupted him with a request to face the committee: "I hardly feel that the speaker's attitude is respectful."

Colin Hamilton Livingstone, President of the Boy Scouts of America, also spoke in favor of the bill, contending that it did not interfere with religious liberty, although he admitted that all creeds do not designate Sunday as the Sabbath.

He said: "In the United States the law of the majority rules," and he declared further: "The law ought to make unbelievers do what their ancestors did and what they ought to do--not desecrate the Sabbath."

Rev. Sam Small, a white haired old man, was called to testify. Congressman McLeod of Michigan asked: "What is your creed, Doctor?"

Mr. Small made answer: "Methodist, sir! Red-hot Methodist! Shoutin' Methodist!

"I have been in 85% of all the counties in this country and I can tell you the people have the idea that their capital city belongs to them and not to the proprietors of movie theatres and baseball parks. The Christian people of this country demand protection of their right to one day of quiet to carry on their forms of worship. They demand protection against people who have no regard for decency or the laws of God or man. . . . And as to the Rotary clubs and the Kiwanis and Lions and Elks that you say are against this bill--well, I've spoken before all of 'em and I wouldn't consider their opinion on a matter of morals. ... Go from the pineries of Michigan to the cedar keys of Florida and from rocky Maine to San Francisco, and you'll find that wherever the Sabbath is loosest and freest the prisons are fullest. I know."

Among the opponents of the bill appeared Congressman John Sosnowski* of Michigan. He declared:

"We've got some of these blue laws in Michigan. True, we have. But let any official try to enforce 'em. Why, the mere attempt would put any man out of office! ... If the ministers can't keep their people in church without this tyrannical legislation, it's high time for them to resign. . . . What this country needs is not less but more amusement!"

Several Seventh Day Adventists (who celebrate the Sabbath on Saturday/-) appeared to oppose the bill. They told of how members of their sect had been persecuted under various Sunday blue laws, how in Tennessee 120 Adventists had paid $25,000 in fines and 87 others served 722 days in jail for "hoeing corn, hauling wood, painting a church, etc." on Sunday. One of this group of opponents was Heber Herbert Votaw, one-time missionary in Burma, Superintendent of Federal Prisons, brother-in-law of Warren G. Harding. Mr. Votaw exclaimed:

"A careful reading of this bill indicates that it is religious legislation, and religious legislation, gentlemen, leads always to persecution. Our brethren, for example, are continually being haled before courts in states where drastic Sunday observance laws give opportunity to a jealous or envious neighbor to work mischief against an Adventist who goes about his work on Sunday."

*Congressman Sosnowski is known to rival Speaker Longworth as the best dressed man in the House. He has 21 suits, 5 overcoats, 11 pairs of shoes, 36 shirts, 3 golf suits, 3 riding suits, 9 hats, 96 neckties.

/- Creeds which do not celebrate their day of rest on Sunday include: Jews (Saturday), Seventh Day Adventists (Saturday), Holy Rollers (Saturday), Mohammedans (Friday).