Evening Star Newspaper, August 3, 1930, Page 88

10 Origin of "Blue Laws’ THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, AUGUST 3, 1930. 2 in Virginia Anniversary Last Week of First Legislative Assembly Meeting in America, Held at Jamestown in 1619, Recalls Regulations for Clothes, Morals and Other Personal Af fairs Traceable to This First Law-Making Body. BY WILLIAM RUFUS SCOTT. ACH anniversary of the meeting of the first legislative assembly ever held in America, that at Jamestown, Va., July 30, 1619, or 311 years ago last Wednesday, finds historians at- taching more and more importance to the event. The approach to the history of the United States ordinarily has been from the Plymouth— Rock angle, or from the landing of the Pil- grims there in 1620, more than a year after the Virginians had met in a representative capacity, since most of the schoolbooks and histories until recently were written by New Englanders or Northerners. Now the other colonial contributions to early American his- tory are being more closely scrutinized, and in this effort among historians virginia is taking on increasing significance. One fact that impresses the researcher into the beginnings of Virginia is the Puritan streak in what in popular conception has been a Cavalier commonwealth. In this first legis- lative assembly in 1619, in fact, one finds a puritanic tone equal to that which always has ted with Massachusetts, for the ordinances and laws passed in Virginia at Jamestown, before the Pilgrims arrived in America, were strait-laced rules laid down for conduct, wearing apparel and the varied activities of the colonists. What are called “blue laws” survive to this @day in Virginia from this early Puritan im- pulsion. In Arlington County within a month 2 man who painted his house on Sunday was arrested for working on the Sabbath in viola- tion of the law and was convicted, but upon appeal the conviction was overruled, and it was hailed as a blow at Virginia's “blue laws.” However, the court did not justify Sunday work; the citizen won his appeal because the court held that a man who paints his own house on Sunday, without compensation as a workman, was not violating the law. get the historical perspective upon the Sunday observance laws of Virginia the records of the Jamestown assembly will be the starting point and the investigator can much more readily picture plain William Brewster as the type of assemblyman or Burgess than the Cavaller type in luxurious waistcoat and knee breeches, with plumed hat and lace cuffs that novelists often depict. The representatives met in the church at Jamestown, no doubt as the most capacious meeting place available, but also because they had a strong religious conviction. This latter assumption is borne out by the following from the records: «But forasmuch as men’s affairs do lttle prosper where God's service is neg- lected, all the Burgesses took their places in the choir till a prayer was said by Mr. Bucks, the minister, that it would please God to guide and sanctify all our pro- ceedings in. His own glory and the good of this- plantation.” “This cudom of opening legislative assemblies has prevailed from 1619 to the present, not only in the individual State Legislatures, but in the Congress as well. There were problems of an economic nature to solve and regulations for trade to be formu- lated, and the ever-agitating question of rela- tions with the mother country, for Virginia, since its founding in 1607, had been having troublous times with the Virginia Company in London and with the King, with revisions in the charter given to Virginia being made as experience or royal whim dictated. But re- ligion and morals had a prominent place in the deliberations. It easily might be imagined that the acts re the work of austere Puritans in New England. as they covered the issues of public morals, attendance at worship, com- pensation of clergymen, education and other social affairs, when the following ordinance is perused: “All persons whatsoever upon the Sab- bath day shall frequent divine services and sermons both forenoon and after- A fine of 3 shillings was provided, to be paid to the church, for failure to obey, and if the disobedient one were a servant the penalty was whipping. What would Virginians today think if they were compelled by law to go to church, and not only so, but go “both forenoon and afternoon?” The question instantly arises, just how Cava- lier was and is Virginia, taking the Cavalier as commonly understood to be a person who has no liking for sumptuary legislation or for minute regulation of personal conduct? In England, in 1619, when the Virginia Assembly was meeting, the Cavaliers were battling the Puritan movement, which, before Virginia was 20 years older, was to smash the Cavaliers and behead their king, Charles I, and yet here was a colony, advertised as founded by Cavaliers, passing laws as stringently puritan- nic as New England could boast somewhat later! THE records further show that compulsory church attendance was not the full meas- ure of the rigors of the Assembly’s religious im- . Por instance, this provision: “AN ministers shall duly read divine If the convicted one was a servant the penalty was whipping. service and exercise their ministerial func- tion according to the ecclesiastical laws and Lrders of the Church of England, and every Sunday in the afternoon shall catechize such as are not yet ripe to come %o ecom- - munion.” f In other words, there was to be instruction in doctrine, and particularly the young people, Must Import Tin. AMERICANS never like to admit their de- pendence on any foreign sources for any- thing America requires, yet two of the largest industries in the country are practically de- pendent upon other parts of the world for part of the material required in their activ- ities—tin. The canning and automobile industries of this country use, at present, 40 per cent of the entire world production of tin. Ninety-nine per cent of this tin is imported. A very small supply is found in the virgin state in the United States and what little tin is produced here is mostly recovered from scrap. Geologists estimate that the world supply of tin will last for many years to come, if exist- ing sources are properly exploited and waste is eliminated. Substitution of other materials for tin wherever it may be economically pos- sible is also suggested by experts. There are some facts that stand out fairly clear as regards tin reserves; the tin famine which has been predicted as imminent for the last few years undoubtedly has been postponed for some years by the flood of new capital which has entered the tin-mining industry during the recent years of high tin prices; all the important alluvial areas are increasing their outputs with each succeeding year; Bolivia, the greatest lode producer, is increas- ing its production by further developinent, better technology and improved transportation; and the other lode producers, taken as a whole, are holding their own. Fortunately for those who will consume tin in the future, the major tin-producing areas have been protected from excessive exploita- tion in the past. The areas centering about British Malaya and including the Federated Malay ftates, Unfederated Malay States, the Netherland East Indies, Siam and Burma, though well situated for cheap water trans- portation, are practically on the equator, in a region whose surface is heavily masked by dense tropical vegettation and peopled largely by industrially backward races. Both prospect- ing and development have progressed only by overcoming great difficulties in comparison with those encountered in producing most metals in Europe and the United States. Bolivia, the second greatest tin area of the world, has been greatly handicapped by great altitude, rugged topography, lack of cheap local power and very expensive transportation. The tin-bearing rvegion of Nigiria has the diffi- culties attending the inland tropics; inadequate local power and transportation have made min- ing difficult. The other areas, which as a whole have about average conditions for mineral production, together produced less than 10 per cent of the world’s total tin in 1928. Fortunate also for future consumers of tin is the fact that many of the uses of tin are not distructive, or are only partly destructive. During 1928 about one-third of the United States’ consumption was supplied by domestic secondary tin. Tin entering the allbys is largely recovered to be reused in new shapes after remelting. Practically all tin entering the pig- ment and silk trades is completely lost when the article containing the tin is finally dis- carded. That used in the manufacture of tin plate, though at present largely lost, is subject to partial recovery as soon as prices warrant the collection and treatment of discarded tin cans. At present most of the tin-plate clip- pings, resulting from ecan manufacture, yleld their tin coating for further use. who were not old enough for the enjoymen$ of the full religious ritual, were to be educated in the meaning of the service. This, too, was compulsory, for any one falling to attend the instruction course was to be punished. : Laws also were passed by this first legisia= ture against idleness, gambling, drunkenness, and (truly & New England touch) againsi ex= cessive wearing of apparel! Both men and women were subject to rebuke if they dis- played too much love of finery. Immorality particularly was singled out for reproof. If the first penalty was not sufficient the guilty one was to be excommunicated, which was synonymous with loss of citizen= ship, and his property would be confiscated; but the governor of the colony was to review all such extreme verdicts to prevent possible excesses of judgment. For swearing a fine of 5 shillings was to be assessed, or, if the convicted one was a servant, the penalty was whipping. Thus it is evident that the earliest Virginians were much more Puritan in their outlook on life than Cavalier, for the regulation of wearing apparel was alien to the Cavalier thought. Moreover, the or- dinances in general were intended tc make people good by law. The Indians were not overlooked in this ree ligious zeal. It was stipulated that each towm or settlement in the colony was to select promising Indian children for training in the Christian faith, so as to carry out one of the stated purposes of the colony when it was con= ceived in London, mely, to advance the kingdom of God on earth by converting the heathen savages in the New World. This first Assembly had a broad outlook. A petition was addressed to the officers of the Virginia Company in London to assist in the establishment of a university or college by sending out artisans and others from England who could help in the task, thereby showing a determination of the colonists to reproduce in America the full civilization of the mother country, educational, no less than civil and religious. Virginia received many other kinds of settiers than Cavaliers, even the first shipload having a variety instead of being limited to the Cavalier type, for the first charter, to Sir Walter Raleigh, sounded a restraining note: It shall be necessary for the safety of all men that shall adventure them- selves in those journeys and voyages to determine to live together in Christian peace and civil quietness each with other. INCE there was bitter religious and politieal strife in England at the time between the Puritans, or non-conformists, and the estabe lished church, and since the colonists would include non-conformists and conformists, poor as well as rich, and commoners as well as gentlemen, it was necessary to admonish them to be tolerant. This passage in Raleigh’s charter may well stand as the beginning of the toleration which was to be developed finally in 1787 in the Constitution of the United States, after much growth in understanding and as- sistance by the experiences of the other Colo= nies, 2 The year 1619 also saw the introduction of slavery in America with the landing in Virginia of African siaves by a Dutch ship. Thus side by side in that year began the democratic system which, as the famous Virginian of the next century was to state, held that “all men are created free and equal and have certain inalienable rights, among which are life, lib= erty and the pursuit of happiness,” and the slavery system which was to cost Virginia much blood and treasure before it was overthrown more than two centuries later in the Civil War, To further dilute the Cavalier aspect of Vire ginia there were sent out convicts from Enge- land, and others the mother country wished to rid herself of, some of whom were first offend- ers, or fallures, who wanted a new®start in life and made good in America. The result was that Virginia was Cavalier in certain ex- ternal ways, such as in the love of great estates and formal, luxveious living, but on all vital questions of the day in the Colony, or in the joint action of the Colonies against England, Virginia was essentially Puritan. If Virginia had been as Cavalier as some think the State was, historians are pointing out, Virginia would not have been so whole- heartedly with the other Colonies in the War for Independence, but would have sided with the monarchical party in England. On the contrary, Virginia was so much against all that the Cavalier stood for in England that the’ State furnished the commander in chief to the Continental army, Washington, and, there- after, four out of the first five Presidents of the United States were Virginians Thomas Jefferson, the Virginian who wrote the Declaration of Independence, had many Puritan outlooks on life, for he was against slavery, fought against union of church and state, as the Puritans did in England and in the New Englapd Colonies, and was the author of the noted toleration act of Virginia. In this age, Virginia appears to be more Puritan than Massachusetts itself, for Virginia backs prohibition, a Puritan idea, and went Republican in 1928; whereag, Massachusetts, the home of the simon-pure Puritans, seems te be against prohibition and went Democratic im 19281