MAKING AMERICANS GOOD

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLI, Issue XLI, 15 October 1921, Page 10

MAKING AMERICANS GOOD

REFORMERS RUNNING RIOT.

SAN FRANCISCO. Aug. 26. The month of August, .1921, will go down in American history *a& notorious for the recrudescence of the efforts of American social reformers to compel the people of the United States to become"good," for all over the wide expanse of the big Republic there have been concerted scheme* promulgated to further restrict the liberties of the residents. The temperance unions an* - Boores of' other kindred organisations have been working overtime in their annual conventions seeking to make America chemically pure, aud the revolt has been the filling of the column^ of the nation's newspapers with resolutions endeavouring to curb the desire* of a large body? of the American population. The intolerable folly of the programme of the Lord's Day Alliance for - making the people of America "drift back to .church" could not be more unattractively set forth than, in the following statement sent out by am official of that organisation:— : "We propose by legislation to make it easier for the people to go to church. In other words, we shall try to clot* the baseball parks, the golf links, the motion picture and other theatres, the concert halls, the amusement parks, the bathing beaches, and co on. W* shall seek to restrict the sale of gaao- ~" line for pleasure automobiles, and. urge other measures thai will gtorf Sundsy automobiling andjoy riding. Excursion steamer rides on Sunday w3l be opposed by us on the ground that they am unnecessary to the moral welfare of Christian America. "Of course, we shall back n« law tkat would compel a man or woman to attend church. But we believe that if we take away a man's motor car, his golf sticks, his Sunday newspaper, his horses, his pleasure steamers, amusement houses, and parks, and prohibit him from playing outdoor games or witnessing field sports, lie naturally will drift back to church. We shall seek to eliminate the huge Sunday newspapers. I see ho reason why the public libraries or the art galleries should remain open -on Sunday." To all this the I*os Angeles Times, one of the leading organs of opinion in Western America, comments: "That programme would not make us drift back to church' at all, but would plujDge this country into a warfare against the churches which would be so bitter that not only they, but the immeasurably valuable ideals of which they have been in large measure the guardians would lose their grip upon our civilisation. It is because intolerance, more than almost anything else, gnaws through our all too thin veneer of civilitation and awakens #he. raw savagery in man that it is a menace . to religions and to governments. Intolerance means not a drift towards church, but a drift towards a period similar to the Thirty Years' War. which devastated Europe; towards the Inquisition, which shook the very foundations of belief; towards an infuriated revolt against all moral restraints and towards chaos in Church and State/*