A hundred years ago today, the front page of the Arkansas Gazette reported that Little Rock's City Council had discussed a resolution to allow movie theaters to open on Sundays.
This was controversial.
The headline:
Sunday Movies Cause of Fight
Aldermen Conrad H. Duttlinger and John H. Tuohey proposed the resolution, with support from Alderman Louis Adams. With Mayor Charles E. Taylor away, the acting mayor firmly opposed the idea. Others were hesitant, torn between old verities dressed up as law and a modernist demand dressed up as patriotism.
The proposal was being made to benefit hundreds of soldiers at Fort Roots who were training to go to war in service of the nation.
Aldermen specifically wanted to know whether movie operators would charge admission -- transactions which, the Gazette reporter did not need to explain to its Christian readers, besides being illegal could endanger the businessmen's immortal souls.
Acting Mayor John H. Hollis said if a vote was insisted upon he would hold that it was out of order, because the operation of a picture show on Sunday was in violation of an ordinance which could not be repealed by a resolution.
The resolution follows:
"Whereas, There is at this time a large number of young men who are in training for the honorable and all-important position of officers in the army of the United States, also the First Regiment of the Arkansas National Guards, stationed at Fort Logan H. Roots, and
"Whereas, Some manner of entertainment should be provided for them, and especially on Sunday afternoons when they have most of the leisure time, therefore, be it
"Resolved, That the mayor and City Council place no interference in the operation of picture shows on Sunday afternoons from 1 to 6 o'clock."
Unable to muster enough courage or wickedness to vote that night, the council agreed to meet that Thursday for a special vote on Sunday movies. The Gazette on June 20:
After conferring with other aldermen and with W.B. Smith, president of the Little Rock Board of Commerce, Acting Mayor Hollis yesterday announced that the proposed special meeting of the City Council will not be held Thursday night. The matter of allowing the motion picture shows to remain open on Sunday was to have been discussed at this meeting. Members of the Ministerial Alliance so violently opposed the Sunday "movies" that all the aldermen agreed that it was best to allow the matter to drop.
Another small item in that same paper reported that a joint meeting of the Little Rock and Argenta Baptist Young Peoples Union at Pulaski Heights Baptist Church had passed its own resolution to commend Hollis for his stand.
Tuohey considered picture shows "innocent amusements," and Duttlinger agreed. But you know what else this guy Duttlinger thought was innocent? Sunday baseball.
I know! Shocking man. In May that year, he actually openly proposed that the Little Rock Baseball Association be allowed to play Sunday games at West End Park (site of today's Little Rock Central High School; the ballpark had been renamed "Kavanaugh Field" in 1915, but only officially -- kinda like today's Broadway Bridge). The Gazette on May 22:
"O, let them play ball on Sunday, just once," said Alderman John H. Tuohey, "and see how it will come out."
"You are asking the City Council to do something which is against the state law, and until that law is amended or repealed," said Mayor Taylor, "Sunday baseball cannot be permitted in Little Rock. So the motion is out of order."
"That may be so," said Alderman Fred A. Isgrig of the Eighth ward, "but I would like the motion voted on. I would like to have the council go on record." ...
"Playing Sunday baseball is clearly against the state law, gentlemen," said Mayor Taylor.
"That may be so," said Alderman Duttlinger, "but there is a way by which we can have Sunday baseball. They play ball on Sunday in Pine Bluff and other cities in Arkansas, and there is no reason why it should not be played in Little Rock. The people want it. We have several thousand soldiers here and will soon have more. They need recreation and they can get recreation by going to see Sunday baseball."
"It cannot be done without violating the law," said Mayor Taylor, "and I will rule the motion out of order," and the matter was dropped.
According to his biography in the online Arkansas Encyclopedia of History & Culture, Taylor was a progressive mayor. His opposition to Sunday amusements was adherence to a law dating from the earliest days of statehood. Today we talk about "blue" laws, but in 1917 it was "Sabbath-breaking."
Writing about the history of Arkansas blue laws for the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review in 1983 (see bit.ly/2rkLndh), Charles L. Kennon III explained, "The 1837 law banned all sales and labor on Sunday, with exceptions for 'acts of daily necessity, comfort, or charity.' The statute made it a misdemeanor for a person, or his apprentice, servant, or slave to labor, with the fine to be one dollar for each offense."
The law allowed non-Christians to conduct business on Sundays, but only if they closed shop another day to observe a Sabbath, Kennon noted (literally, these details are in his footnotes).
Amendments during the 19th century added offenses: card games in 1853, hunting for sport in 1855, horse racing in 1875; and playing baseball on Sunday was prohibited by "Act March 15, 1885." The law appeared under the state code's Chapter 48, the criminal code, as LXVIII-Sabbath-Breaking. (See, if you're obsessed, A Digest of the Statutes of Arkansas: Embracing All Laws of a General Nature in Force at the Close of the Session of the General Assembly of One Thousand Nine Hundred and Fifteen, Including the Primary Election Law Adopted at the Election Held November 7, 1916.)
1917 was not the first year Arkansans tried to bypass it. For example, in April 1915, Hot Springs police arrested 25 people at movie houses that opened on Sundays to raise money for a Loyal Order of Moose convention.
But as the 20th century rolled past two world wars, amendments picked apart the Sunday-closing statute. Sunday baseball became legal in 1935 and Sunday movies in 1939.
"In the 1950s the Arkansas blue laws were effectively repealed," Kennon noted, "and Arkansas was without a comprehensive closing scheme until 1965."
The Legislature corrected that with Act 135 of 1965, and meanwhile, cities drew up their own Sunday-closing ordinances, of remarkable quirkiness. When I was growing up in Little Rock, supposedly we could buy lettuce on Sunday but not cabbage; but mostly I remember the whole store being closed.
The state Supreme Court struck down Act 135 in 1982, but I'm out of room. You could read the rest of Kennon's article or look up "blue laws" in the online Encyclopedia of Arkansas. As it explains, cities today retain the authority to regulate "the operation of businesses within such cities on Sundays, which some still do, particularly in the area of liquor sales."
Next week: Katherine Stinson, Girl Aviator, Brings First Money to Washington
ActiveStyle on 06/19/2017