The Arena. Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891

Successful parties in the United States, as in England, have generic rather than specific names. Federalist, Democratic-Republican, Whig, Democratic, and Republican; all represent popular triumphs and administrations of the government. Anti-Masonic, Liberty, American, Free Soil, Greenback, Prohibition, Labor,—these party names represent no partisan victories. In the Cabinet of the first President of the Republic, Thomas Jefferson was Secretary of State, and Alexander Hamilton was Secretary of the Treasury. To each of them Washington submitted the question whether Congress had power to incorporate a bank. Jefferson, believing popular liberty safe only in a strict construction of the Constitution, denied the power to create a bank because no such power is expressed, or is strictly necessary to the exercise of any power expressly granted. Hamilton, believing that a liberal construction of the Constitution was essential to the development of America, answered that Congress had the power, that the power was incidental to the national character of the government. He construed the grant of “necessary” powers in these words: “It is a common mode of expression to say that it was necessary for a government or a person to do this or that thing, when nothing more is intended or understood than that interests of the government or person require or may be promoted by the doing of this or that thing. The imagination can be at no loss for exemplifications on the use of the word in this sense. And it is the true one, in which it is to be understood as used in the Constitution.” The Supreme Court, quoting these very words with approval, has adopted Hamilton’s construction. With the writing of those two opinions in the Cabinet of Washington, the enduring lines of party division in America were drawn. There ought to be early recognition of the fact, that in case a new party of the people shall be formed, a party determined upon reform of existing abuses and oppressions, upon the suppression of the liquor traffic as we know it, upon the overthrow of every semblance of plutocracy, upon opening to every child of the American democracy an equality of opportunity as yet unknown, resort must be had to those broad, liberal, and constructive constitutional doctrines which the existing Democratic party steadily opposes, and which the Republican party does not sufficiently apply for the benefit of the masses. It is the duty and opportunity of the prohibitionists to make such a party. A party going to Thomas Jefferson for a baptism of Democratic feeling, and content with no sprinkling, and to the school of Hamilton for its constitutionalism, can supplant the Republicans, and only such a party can meet the case of labor. The woollen manufacturers of Massachusetts have just remonstrated against further reduction of the hours of labor unless the reduction be uniform in all the manufacturing States, and they made the significant suggestion that Congress has power to establish uniform hours of labor. Congress does have that power as a part of the power to regulate commerce. The eight-hour day can only come in this country by act of Congress, and the construction that sustains such an act sustains national regulation of the liquor traffic. The general welfare of the Union is involved in each case. American industry is a unit so far as the interests of American homes require the rule of uniformity, and the home life of America is a unit so far as it needs that protection which, in order to be complete, must come from the national authority. I venture to suggest that one thing that has hindered the cementing of the alliance between labor and prohibition, is the tendency of the prohibitionists while recognizing the importance of labor problems to insist that prohibition must come first. The labor men will never go into any party that puts it quite in that way. Is it not sufficient to claim urgency for the prohibition issue, to say that no work should take precedence of prohibition in party performance? I think the time has come when this issue can be taken up by a political party and I recommend a party that shall declare for prohibition with the same emphasis with which the Republican party declared for protection in 1884 and in 1888. I think, however, that the party that carries a bill for national control of the manufacture and traffic in liquors through Congress, to be signed by a President chosen with a knowledge of his prohibition principles, will have to have a good running mate for its prohibition issue. Yet I believe the prohibition plank in the platform of the great progressive party, lineally descending, would be the centre of attraction and of repulsion. I grant that. But the balance will be so kept that multitudes who take, at first at least, a livelier interest in some other measure which also is promoted by party ascendancy, will vote for partisan prohibition because it is the policy of the party of human progress with which they are keeping step.

I refrain from going at length into a discussion of labor issues. Shall prohibitionists come out for State Socialism, shall they pledge themselves to make that economic nationalism which is now only a prophecy and an ideal, a political fact when they came into administration? No political party should do this. But the word socialism is a word of good meaning. It means fraternity, industry upon a Christian basis. In the discussion that impends in this country, concerning the rights and the wrongs of the wage-earners, and concerning the demands for relief, constantly growing louder, of the agricultural producing classes, the question arises in the mind at the outset, whether our policy, state and national, shall be based upon the laissez faire doctrine, the “let alone” principle; or upon the principle of the intervention of public opinion through the agency of government to effect the ends of justice and of aid to the weaker classes whether by regulative laws, or by the assumption by the public (through local, state, or national government, as the nature of the case may require,) of such business or industrial enterprises as are natural monopolies or can be best performed by the people collectively. I say this question arises in the mind at the outset, but after all, it is, I think, not a question requiring much argument in this day of the world; because, although there are some men more busy with their own daily duties than attentive to the world’s progress who are apt, from time to time, to raise this question, appealing in favor of the “let alone” principle, it is really a question already decided. The people both in England and in America have grown quite away from laissez faire doctrine, the tendency is strong and constantly increasing in the direction of increase of governmental intervention to redress the social balance. I believe it is impossible that this tendency should be arrested. I believe it would not be in the interest of humanity to arrest it. There is a vast field for individualism, and in that field it is eminently useful. There is a field also for society, for the State. The needs of the people in this country to-day are such, the thought of the masses is advancing so rapidly in the direction indicated that no political party can long hold power that does not accept the socialistic tendency and prudently experiment in that direction. There is, in point of fact, no other possible direction in which society can move, and it cannot stand still. From the necessity for some intervention in aid of the weaker classes against the operation of the laws of demand and supply, it follows that “no class legislation” is not a good cry for a labor party.

The land question should have a distinct recognition as a true reform issue, and while committal to the policy signified by the term single tax, in its entirety, should be avoided, land speculation and monopoly should be condemned as a monstrous evil, and against that evil should be directed such special taxation of land values as will check and ultimately destroy it, without too rudely disturbing existing values.

Government ownership of railroads, telegraphs, and of the anthracite coal mines, should be favored.

Gas, electric lights, and street railroads should be municipalized.

Legislation, reducing gradually and prudently the hours of labor, should be given urgency.

National aid to education, unwisely neglected by the Republicans, is strong with labor, and will be stronger the more it is discussed. Prohibitionists should advocate universal suffrage with universal education.

Educational tests for the suffrage offer too easy a repose for the conservatism of wealth, and to advocate them is to touch the wrong note, that of distrust rather than trust in the masses. Stand with Jefferson for Democracy and education, not for education first and the ballot afterwards. Go to the magnificent oration of Wendell Phillips, “The Scholar in a Republic,” for the courage and wisdom to say with that friend of prohibition and labor, that “crime and ignorance have the same right to vote that virtue has…. The right to choose your governor rests on precisely the same foundation as the right to choose your religion.” “Thank God for His method of taking bonds of wealth and culture to share all their blessings with the humblest soul He gives to their keeping.” “Universal suffrage,—God’s church, God’s school, God’s method of gently binding men into commonwealths in order that they may at last melt into brothers.” All attempts to identify prohibition or labor with free trade should be abandoned.

No large extension of our market for manufactures in Spanish America or in other foreign countries is possible, if we are to reduce hours of labor, abolish child labor, call married women from factory to home, and raise wages in America, regardless of the effect upon the cost of production. Labor reform, the socialistic tendency require a rigid adherence to the protective system. But reliance upon the home market will not only make labor legislation possible, but will be economic wisdom as well, for by education, by suppressing the saloon, by shortening hours, by increasing wages, we can indefinitely increase the capacity of our own people to consume. The McKinley tariff will work out its own salvation; for the friends of labor or prohibition to attack it is a fatal mistake. Prohibition, labor reform, and protection are natural allies, and in the party of the future will be united. Whoever wishes to form a new party for prohibition and for labor, will do well to appropriate rather than discard the historic Republican issues. Let the reformers catch the Republicans bathing and steal their clothes, albeit they already have some garments of their own which are very good. If a Democrat, for the sake of temperance or labor, or any issue, will leave the Democratic party, he has outgrown the constitutional doctrines of that party, and will not cling to its economic theories. If he brings a traditional prejudice in favor of government by the masses rather than by classes, he brings what is needed. When the period of political readjustment, not yet surely begun, is over, the Republican party will have been supplanted by a party inheriting many distinguishing articles of its creed; but the Democratic party will remain as the party of obstruction, claiming descent from Jefferson but not the true representative of the eternal truths with which his name is associated. Around the anti-national idea the ultra-conservatives, the cormorants of society, the panderers to vice, the white-liners of the South will rally. The true Democrats, with a unanimity hitherto unknown, will appreciate the utility of the national idea and will demonstrate that our Constitution was indeed intended “to live and take effect in all successions of ages.” The popular party, at once conservative and radical, will demonstrate by its habitual self-restraint, by its scrupulous regard for justice, by the honorable methods which it shall observe and exact, by its prudence in legislation, that the Democracy in the plentitude of its powers, is most truly conservative of all that vast store of good which the past hands down.

SUNDAY AT THE WORLD’S FAIR

BY WM. H. ARMSTRONG

The question of closing on Sunday the gates of the World’s Fair is one that not only interests our nation but also the nations of the world.

On September 3, eighty members of the National World’s Fair Commission, and one hundred members of the Board of Lady Managers, listened to the arguments of representatives of the American Sabbath Union for closing the World’s Fair Sundays. The arguments for Sunday closing were presented by Col. Elliott F. Shepard, President of the American Sabbath Union; Rev. Dr. S. F. Scoville, President of Wooster University, Ohio; Rev. T. A. Fenley, Secretary of the Philadelphia Sabbath Association; Gen. O. O. Howard; Col. Alex. F. Bacon; Hon. L. S. Coffin; Rev. F. L. Patton, President of Princeton University; Dr. P. S. Henson of Chicago; and Mrs. T. B. Carse, as the representative of the W. C. T. U.

On reading the addresses and petitions presented by the above named persons, I was surprised to see the diversity of names given to the first day of the week. Some called it “the Sabbath day,” others “Sunday,” while another class termed it “the American Sabbath”—none of them having Bible authority for the names given. This inadvertence might be excused if these gentlemen were not poising as moulders of public thought and teachers of Bible truth, while they are endeavoring to palm off Sunday upon the National Columbian Commission as a “holy day,” for which they cannot produce Bible authority.

Nowhere in the Bible can they find any command to keep Sunday as a “holy day,” neither can they there find where the Jewish Sabbath was ever changed to the first day of the week—Sunday. This change was made by Constantine’s edict, in 321 a.d., which was the first law either ecclesiastical or civil by which the sabbatical observance of Sunday was known to have been ordained. Does anyone claim that Constantine was inspired? The sabbatical observance of Sunday, as prescribed by Constantine, or of “the American Sabbath,” as prescribed by statutory law, is yielding obedience to the commandments of man and not of God, and all their advocates are confronted with the Scripture: “But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” Matt. xv. 9.

As Dr. Francis L. Patton, of Princeton University, was the only speaker who attempted to speak on the Biblical aspect of the Sunday question, I shall direct my remarks to him. The doctor is quoted as saying: “The Ten Commandments represent the high water mark of morality. The Jew had contributed the greatest feature of the civilization of the nineteenth century. The Sabbath had become the inheritance of every civilized nation. God had issued His command as to the observance of the Sabbath, and that command was imperative.” These words would be more appropriate coming from a Pharisee, but when spoken by a Gentile claiming to be a minister of the New Testament, 2 Cor. iii. 6, they come with bad grace, and are not in harmony with the Scriptures.

The Ten Commandments made on Sinai were delivered to the Jews alone and never were intended for the Gentiles, for Paul said: “For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves.” Rom. ii. 14. An appeal to the law itself shows that it was always and only addressed to the house of Israel, “to you and your children, to your man servants, and maid servants, and to thy stranger that is within thy gates.” It cannot be proven that God ever commanded a Gentile to keep the Sabbath. “The Ten Commandments,” says Luther, “do not apply to us Gentiles and Christians, but only to the Jews.” “A law,” says Grotius, “obliges only those to whom it is given, and to whom the Mosaic law is given, itself declares: ‘hear, O Israel.’”

When the Gentiles first began to accept Jesus Christ, we read in Acts xv. that the Apostles, elders, and brethren at Jerusalem wrote them letters as follows: “Forasmuch as we have heard, that certain which went out from us have troubled you with words, subverting your souls, saying, Ye must be circumcised, and keep the law; to whom we gave no such commandment…. For it seemeth good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things; That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if you keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well.” Here is freedom for the Gentiles from the Ten Commandments and especially the observance of the Jewish Sabbath, the most valued of the ten.

Romans ii. 14 plainly shows “the Gentiles had not the law,” and this constituted a mark of distinction between Jew and Gentile. But had the law been also given to the Gentiles, the Jewish nation would not have been fenced off from the rest of the world by it. The very fact that they were a separate people under the law proves that their code was not a universal law. Paul said: “For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law.” Gal. v. 3. This is clear, only the circumcised Jew and proselyte was under the law.

In favor of the Mosaic law, many advocates say that all municipal governments are based upon it; but this only proves that it is not of the Kingdom of Christ, because his kingdom is not of this world. Christ’s law is the “ministration of Spirit” “the law of the spirit of life written in the heart.” The Sinai law was the “ministration of death” written on stone. Moses’ law only gave the knowledge of sin, Christ’s law gives a far more exquisite knowledge of sin, and contains the remedy for its removal.

We find, in Matt, xxviii. 18-20, and Mark xvi. 15-20, the final universal commission of Christ, his imperative orders to all teachers and preachers in the Kingdom of God. Everything else is excluded but Christ’s Gospel, and his commands. They stand out against every form of sin, and they only are to be preached to sinners as a means of conviction and salvation, and to believers as their present rule of life; and to show that he is not subjected to, nor in need of any former code, he announces the fact that “All power is given me in heaven and earth.” Here Christ sets up his supreme authority, removes all temporary systems, and demands subjection to his own gospel and commandments.

It would have been more appropriate for the members of the American Sabbath Union, in their petitions to the National Columbian Commission, to subscribe themselves “many Israelites,” for they preach the law of commandments more than the Spirit of the Lord, which is life and liberty. Paul describes them, viz.: “But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament: which vail is done away in Christ. But even unto this day when Moses is read, the vail is upon their hearts. Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.” 2 Cor. iii. 14-16.

Doctor Patton is credited with saying: “If the nation and fair should yield obedience to the fourth commandment they would be in a fair way to the other nine.” I wish, while the doctor was speaking, that the Apostle Paul could have stepped in and delivered several of his old sermons such as he delivered to the Galatians who, as Christians, were trying to keep the law of Moses. I select a few of his observations, viz.: “Man is not justified by the works of the law. For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse. But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for the just shall live by faith. And the law is not of faith. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith; but after faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. But if ye be led of the Spirit ye are not under the law.” Gal. ii. 16; iii. 10, 11, 12, 24, 25; v. 4, 14, 18.

Paul also tells those “foolish Galatians”: “But now, after ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain.” Gal. iv. 9-11. I can see how Paul would be also afraid of these Sunday agitators, as they spend much of their time in the observance-worship of days, months, times, and years.

Under the old covenant God’s laws were written on tables of stone, while under the new covenant we receive the promise, viz.: “This is the covenant I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them.” Heb. x. 16.

All who consider “remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy” applies to them, should keep the day in the exact manner prescribed for the Israelites. There are seventy-seven positive commands from God to the children of Israel regarding the keeping of the Sabbath day holy to Him. Now, I ask what Bible authority has Doctor Patton, or any of the Sabbath day advocates for ignoring or abridging any of these seventy-seven commands? To obey the law, no wood or water must be borne; no fire built; no victuals cooked; no domestic animals must be worked, even to drive to the house of worship. To do any of these were a violation of the fourth commandment. Is there a member of the American Sabbath Union who keeps the law for which they are clamoring? These agitators rush to Chicago, with petitions signed by hundreds of thousands, and say: “If the fair is opened Sunday it will force tens of thousands of employees to work Sunday,” while their petitioners are forcing hundreds of thousands of their employees to do even extra work in getting up their best dinners for the clergy and visiting brethren on Sunday; this they do though the fourth commandment says: “Thou shalt have no work done,” “that thy man servant and thy maid servant-may rest as well as thou.” Deut. v. 12-14.

No one can deny the necessity and benefit of man resting one day in seven; but when any set of men attempt to make our legal rest day “a holy day,” and prescribe certain modes and forms of rest by demanding that the nation discard their newspapers, conveniences, and amusements—which are means of rest to the majority—because they call them sins if enjoyed on Sunday, it is in order for us to “speak out” and ask these reformers to produce their authority.

No man has the right of dictating to another how he shall rest. What is rest for one man would be an unpleasant strain upon another; to illustrate: The church people, mostly the wealthy class who are not bound with labor’s chains, can do as they please, enjoy all the amusements—the ball, theatre, lecture, concert, card-party, etc.,—throughout the week, so when Sunday comes it is a rest for them to ride to church, glide up the aisles, listen to the deep, solemn sounding tones of the organ, glance around at the rich toilets, hear a pleasing short lecture, greet friends, and return home for a nice dinner. The poor laboring man who has none of these things would feel out of place among all that culture, wealth, and luxury, so he must seek other diversions.

The members of the American Sabbath Union remind one of the Scribes and Pharisees, who brought unto Jesus a woman taken in adultery and said unto him: “Now Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned, but what sayest thou?” Jesus, totally disregarding Mosaic law, said unto them: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” So we can apply these words of Jesus to “the Sunday agitators”—as law breakers—and say unto them, he that is not breaking any of Moses’ laws among you, let him first cast a stone at the managers of the World’s Fair.

When Jesus came bringing the light of the new covenant, he showed how unimportant was this question, for we cannot find in the New Testament where he ever recommended anyone to keep the Sabbath day holy. On the contrary, he and his disciples were accused of breaking the Sabbath by the hypocritical Scribes and Pharisees.

“The poor we have always with us,” and to alleviate as much as possible the misery of the less fortunate is one of the noblest missions of life. From dark, dust-begrimed habitations of a hot city comes a cry whose burden is “Fresh Air.” So throw wide open the gates of the World’s Fair on Sundays, that the wage worker may find rest and enjoyment; for the rich can rest when they please—the poor must take recreation when they can. Sectism is blinding humanity and turning them from the old pathway to Jesus, the Son of God, who came to save man from his sins. This “one day worship” is not enough, for God claims our services each and every day, as every day is given us by Him. God certainly must be jealous of nations to-day serving Satan six days in the week and then worshipping Sunday (Constantine’s law) or Saturday (Moses’ law) instead of Him. For their Sunday worship is mostly vain show and pomp, fashioned as a crowd bedecked for a theatrical performance, all of which is forbidden in the Bible (1 Tim. ii. 9-11), which they profess to follow.