CALIFORNIA SUNDAY AMENDMENT.
By Editor
THE proposed amendment to the constitution of California naming the first day of the week as a rest day and giving the various county and municipal governments power to make laws to enforce it, has received hard treatment at the hands of the Assembly Committee. We stated last week in brief what was done at the hearing. Since that hearing the Committee have taken the bill into consideration again, and as one paper reports it, "Grove L. Johnson's Sunday amendment came out of Committee to-day shorn of all religious symptoms. It has been amended so that it merely provides one day of rest each week." It stands now as follows: "Amending Article XX of the Constitution, by adding a new section thereto, to be known as Section 21, relating to a day of rest. "The Legislature of the State of California, at its thirty-seventh session, commencing January 7, 1907, two-thirds of all the members elected to each of the two houses of said Legislature voting in favor thereof, hereby propose that Article XX of the Constitution of the State of California be amended by adding thereto a new section, to be known as Section 21, to read as follows: "SECTION 21.—The necessity of encouraging and fostering the observance of one day in seven as a day of rest, is hereby recognized as essential to the welfare of the State; and to that end, it is hereby provided it shall be unlawful for any person, firm, or corporation, to require or compel, any employee to labor or perform services, for more than six consecutive days in any one week; and the Legislature shall provide penalties for the violation of this provision, and for the proper enforcement of the same." IT WILL BE SEEN THAT NO DAY whatever is set apart, simply that employers should grant to their employees one day of rest in the week. It is very similar to a law which was passed Feb. 27, 1893, and may be found in the California Penal Code, page 722. As above presented it means little. What the Assembly will do with it we do not know. If it should pass the Assembly in this form, of course it will go to the Senate, and may, in order not wholly to offend the advocates of the measure, be passed in the form it comes from the Assembly. IN A WAY THAT IS ALL that some of the advocates of the Sunday amendment ask for. They made a great plea for the poor laboring man; altho the union labor forces number thousands in this State, and have many able speakers, none of them have appeared to champion the bill. In fact, some of them are directly opposed to it. Yet if the advocates of that measure were honest in their appeal for the thousands who, they contend, have to work because there is no law guarding them in their rights against employers, they certainly ought to be satisfied with this bill in that respect, inasmuch as they contend that the measure they are pleading for is in no way religious. WHETHER THEY BELIEVE THAT OR NOT, certainly no one else can believe it. They are still pleading for the religious measure. It is the religious day which they want sanctified by civil law, and they will never rest satisfied with a dozen measures of this kind, if it does not recognize the religious day, the first day of the week. This Amendment, if carried and adopted by the people, will be used as a basis for religious legislation. It ought to die; for apart from that it means nothing. FULL REPORTS FROM THE HEARING did not reach us in time to publish in this week's paper, but we will have more upon the subject next week. There are some very interesting things to be published concerning that hearing, and we are sure that our readers will be glad to get them. The amended bill or substitute is made a special order for February 18, which we have not yet reached at this writing. We will report to our readers next week as to what is done with it.