Wednesday, April 16, 1919
“Just a little bitterness entered into some of the arguments” during a public hearing in Albany today on legislation allowing professional baseball and movies on Sundays.
Under New York’s blue law, it’s illegal to charge admission to “public amusements” on the Christian sabbath. Theater owners and theatergoers have argued that movies aren’t covered by the blue law because they didn’t exist when the law was enacted.
Conflicting opinions from the courts have made Sunday movies unofficially a matter of local discretion. According to the state conference of mayors, 23 cities in New York State, including Troy, allow theaters to open on Sunday, while 35 do not. The legislation currently under consideration would create a “local option” for Sunday movies, while a separate bill would do the same for baseball.
Opponents of the legislation oppose what they call the “commercialization” of the Sabbath. Rev. O. R. Bartholomew argues that allowing movies and baseball would “react against labor. Most people work half-days on Saturdays, he notes, but with a full range of recreation allowed on Sundays, workers would have no good reason not to work six full days a week.
Rev. Joseph A. Dunney of Albany calls himself a baseball fan, but insists that “the Ten Commandments should never be put to a referendum. Dr. David J. Burrell claims that the only real demand for the legislation comes from businesses that expect to profit from it, including “certain newspapers for obvious reasons.”
Judge Cornelius F. Collins of New York City — no relation to Cornelius V. Colllins of Troy — supports the legislation. He claims the blue laws unfairly target workingclass amusements while “the wealthy enjoy the Sabbath by motoring, but they have to have chauffeurs who work.” He believes that the man “with a quarter in his pocket” has as much right to “enjoy himself on his day of rest as the man with thousands behind him.”
Collins claims that every man gathered in the executive chamber, pro and con, has played baseball on some Sunday in his life. When three men rise to deny that, the judge argues that “there are 100 for every man who has not.”
Not all clergy support the blue laws. Rev. C. A. Jackson of Brooklyn says, “You talk of commercialization because a man is paid for what he does? Is there a minister to- day who can do without it?”
New York State Federation of Labor president James P. Holland scoffs at the claim that workingmen would rather spend Sundays at home with their families. “I know many who want to get away from them,” he jokes.