Rev. W. F. Crafts Against the Editors of the American Sentinel

II. CRIMINAL INACCURACY.

4. The false claim that I am urging the National Sunday Law as “Religious Legislation.” (38-40) On page 163 I am quoted as saying, “A weekly day of rest has never been permanently secured in any land, except on the basis of religious legislation.” The last word should be “obligation,” as correctly quoted on page 161; but even there it is made to mean “law,” whereas it is a distinct reference, not to law, but to its “basis” in the public conscience. This is only saying what is true also of the basis of our laws against adultery. The absurd but malicious inference from the above that I favor “a law compelling people to observe the first day of the week religiously,” is almost worthy to be classed with the gross slanders before mentioned. The same may be said of (41-46) five statements in the sermon on pages 165-6, which the editors endorse as a “candid statement of facts,”—namely, that “there is a direct though concealed purpose in this movement to accomplish a practical union of Church and State;” and that the enactment of the Blair Sunday bill would compel Seventh-day Adventists to go to church on Sunday, which is reiterated, in substance, three times. (47-49) Three falsehood are associated with the quotation about the “Puritan Sabbath,” on the first page of the paper. This quotation is given in one place in the paper as mine, but in another it only “seems to be credited to Mr. Crafts.” Even this is a manifest falsehood, as it “seems” clearly to be the comment of some reporter unfriendly to the Christian Sabbath, and certainly is not published approvingly by the editor of the Lutheran Observer, nor is the preceding misrepresentation of Mrs. Bateham. (50-55) On pages 163-4, there are five misstatements as to the Blair Sunday-Rest bill, most of which anyone can detect by examining the bill as given in the Senate report of hearing upon it. The statement that the counter-petition circulated by Professor Jones does not “confound” the Sunday-Rest bill with any other, is sufficiently answered by the one word “Amendment” in the petition, which clearly refers to the Blair Amendment (though it misrepresents it). This “Amendment” is mixed with the Sunday-Rest bill to dupe the enemies of the so-called “religious amendment” into opposition to the proposed Sunday law. (56-59) I am grossly misquoted in four places, pages 164 and 168, the editors taking the long-hand reports of incompetent and sometimes unfriendly reporters, and quoting them, as no intelligent man can be innocent in doing, as what I said, not as what I was reported to have said. Even if that last form had been used, it would not have excused the misquotations. Fair disputants do not quote irresponsible abstracts of an opponent’s views, without ascertaining their accuracy. RCAAS 8.6

The misreport of my address at Vineland is taken as authority for the misstatement that I have advocated the Blair Sunday-Rest bill. The January document, referred to elsewhere, in its “Extra” will show that neither the American Sabbath Union nor the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union champion the bill, but ask for radical changes, some of which Senator Blair has consented to make, especially in the two slight references to “religious observance.” The only Sunday-Rest bill I have ever advocated is the unwritten one described at large in the following petition, which, it will be seen, would allow seventh-day people the liberty to do, as “private work” on Sunday, almost anything except to open a shop, which would be forbidden only because it would “interfere with the general rest:”— RCAAS 9.1

“To the United States Senate:— RCAAS 10.1

“The undersigned, adult residents of the United States twenty-one years of age or more, hereby earnestly petition your honorable body to pass a bill forbidding in the Nation’s Mail and Military service, and in interstate commerce, and in the District of Columbia and the Territories, all Sunday traffic and work, except works of religion and works of real necessity and mercy, and such private work by those who observe another day as will neither interfere with the general rest nor with public worship. (Duplicate to the House.)” RCAAS 10.2

(60-67) On pages 161, 164, 165, 168, there are seven more misstatements, one that I always speak contemptuously of minorities; another that I falsified in saying the W. C. T. U. was not the originator of the petition, its “head”—it is glory enough that the W. C. T. U. is its heart and hand; another that I had to “plead” with P. M. Arthur to get him to favor the Sunday-rest movement, whereas he said at our first private interview, that “if he had the power, he would stop every wheel on Sunday;” another, like to the last, that I had to “plead” with the workingmen, engineers, and Knights, to endorse our movement, whereas the discussion, two hours in one case, and one hour in the other, was wholly on practical adjustments of the movement, which their applause approved at its first mention; another, that in quoting Prof. Jones’ “admissions” of the very principle on which we base the civil Sunday, we are making him “plead” for Sunday law. RCAAS 10.3

The January document of the American Sabbath Union (23 Park Row, New York), which any one can have for the asking, publishes, without comment, the “admissions of those who oppose the Sunday-rest bill as an infringement of liberty,” showing that not only Dr. Lewis, of the Seventh-day Baptists, but also the infidel Wolff and the two Seventh-day Adventists, Mr. Haskell and Prof. Jones, “gave their case away,” the latter not by admitting that government has the right to make Sunday laws, but by admitting the premises which any logical mind can see leads straight to that conclusion. One of the passages in which Prof. Jones admitted the very principle on which we base our justification of Sunday laws is as follows: “If in the exercise of his religious convictions under the first four commandments he invades the rights of his neighbor, then the civil government says that is unlawful. Why? Because it is irreligious, or because it is immoral? Not at all; but because it is uncivil, and for that reason only.” In that admission that government may legislate in regard to the first four commandments when it is necessary to prevent persons from uncivil invasion of the rights of their neighbors, there is a base large enough to build such a Sunday-rest law as is asked for in our petition. RCAAS 10.4

Other manifest misrepresentations are, the illogical accusation of insincerity against Dr. Herrick Johnson on page 165, and another illogical accusation against the National Reform Association, on page 167, and references to me, in two places, as connected with the last mentioned society, though I am not, in order to associate the origin of the petition with the movement to put “God” into the Constitution and so prove the proposed Sunday law “religious legislation.” There are several other minor inaccuracies. If I am notified by the proper officers that these charges are to be investigated officially by you, the churches addressed, I will, if desired, send a copy of the paper with the sixty-seven falsehoods marked and numbered. RCAAS 11.1

It is almost, if not quite, an immorality worthy of church discipline, that in this same paper these editors oppose the Sunday closing of saloons, except where there is prohibition for all days, notwithstanding the fact that Scotland proves that Sunday closing reduces the consumption of liquor one-fourth, that is, to give one-fourth prohibition, a quarter loaf of unpoisoned bread; while Cincinnati, when saloons are open on Sunday, has one-third of its crime on that day, but during Sunday closing gives the police almost nothing to do. RCAAS 11.2

To sum up, these editors have put into one issue of their paper sixty-seven false statements, thirty-seven of them gross slanders, bolstered up by thirty petty slanders. RCAAS 11.3

To correct sixty-seven slanders per week in this paper, besides the numerous similar misstatements, less venomous, in the Seventh-day Baptist organ, edited by Dr. Lewis, and the numerous reiterations of the same falsehoods in the organs of the liquor traffic and of infidelity, would make life a useless mosquito battle, and leave no time for more important work; therefore do not expect me to reply to the replies that this affidavit may call out. RCAAS 11.4

Minor points in this list of falsehoods the editors accused may be able to explain, but the paper itself, and my original challenge to Prof. Jones, and the Congressional Record furnish absolutely conclusive proof of willful and malicious slanders numerous enough to warrant all readers in declining to believe anything that may be hereafter said or written by these editors, and also to warrant the churches to which they belong, in refusing to keep them any longer in their membership without repentance and reform. The Seventh-day Adventist Churches are themselves on trial. We must hold them responsible, if, after this exposure, they still allow such slanders published in their behalf. W. F. Crafts. RCAAS 11.5

Cahon City, Colo., June 26, 1889. RCAAS 11.6

Rev. W. F. Crafts appeared before me, and swore that the above statement is true. MOSES T. HALK, Notary Public. RCAAS 11.7