Show The Women on Sunday At the Womans Suffrage convention in Washington last Wednesday the platform plat-form committee raised a merry war by the following preamble and resolutions I to wit I I I Whereas The constitution of the United States promises noninterference with the I religious liberty qf the people and I Whereas Congress is now threatening to abridge the liberty of all in response to ecclesiastical dictation from a portion of the people I Resolved That this association enters a protest against any national attempt to control the innocent inclinations of the 1 people either on the Jewish Sabbath or the Christian Sunday and this we do quite irrespective of our individual opinions opin-ions as to the sanctity of Sunday I Resolved That we especially protest against this present attempt to force all the people to follow the religious dictates of a part of the people as establishing a precedent the entrance of a most dangerous dan-gerous complicity between church and state thereby subtly undermining the foundation of liberty so carefully laid by the wisdom of our fathers i It takes a minute or two to get it through a full head of hair that this has reference to keeping the Worlds fair open on the Seventh day of the week commonly called Sunday Congress is threatening to withhold its two and a half millions heretofore appropriated should the Fair manugers violate the prohibitions I hibitions that went along with it A canvass of the House seems to show that this prohibitory clause will not be repealed re-pealed and Senator QUAY that pious gentleman from Pennsylvania is on I record as saying that even should the House pass the resolution itI I will get a blow in the Senate I that will put it to sleep He takes the I position that a reversal of the action of Congress would cause the world at large ito i-to look upon the great American natiqn as a Sabbath breaker and a desecrator of divine law Mr QUAY indorses to the full the statement of that eminent journalistic jour-nalistic apostle of holiness Colonel ELLIOT EL-LIOT F SHEPARD that no new reasons have been urged for the repeal that the old one remain unanswered and that there are many new reasons on the side of shutting the gates on Sunday It is rather surprising though it would be hard to say why that the preamble and resolution we have quoted from the proceedings of the Womans Suffrage convention should have found expression there Women asa as-a general thing are the most radical of the moralists though when they get to be reformers they are apt to astonish people with their unconventional ideas At any rate when the afosesaid preamble and resolutions came up there were enough I votes on the liberal side to beat a motion to lay them on the table 50 to > 23 when I the subject was laid over to the ollowing dayThe The preachers who make it a business of poking their ecclesiastical noses into legislation and other affairs of a not strictly clerical nature are finding out that the world is not nearly so tolerant as it used to be of such interference People are relying more and more on their own consciences in the interpretation of right and wrong aided to be sure by religious relig-ious teachings but not by dictation They feel that Sunday was made quite as much for men as men for Sunday They regard as a sort of worship all communion with nature and GoDgiven science in their visible forms The preachers may entertain different views and assert them too but at the proper times and places There is such a thing as these Suffrage ladies say as a dangerous complicity between church and state and everybody every-body nowadays is on the lookout to give that notion a stab under the fifth rib |