DISCORD ON SUNDAY

...Active in many Philadelphia civic and philanthropic endeavors—he spearheaded the Society Hill urban renewal program in "center city"—Greenfield views the rise of the discount department store business as dooming downtown Philadelphia to decay...

...The last group, headed by Reverend Mel-vin M. Forney, is the voice of rural, up-state elements that seek not only the enforcement and strengthening of blue laws but the banning of organized sports, the sale of liquor, and horse racing with pari-mutuel betting on Sunday...

...Ironically, other legislation was enacted at the behest of hotel associations and chambers of commerce to liberalize the blue law to permit the sale of liquor and to permit harness racing with pari-mutuel betting on Sunday...

...Notwithstanding, five orthodox Jewish merchants in Philadelphia have brought action in the courts to have the Sunday law declared unconstitutional...

...Greenfield has built a vast real estate and financial empire which consists of downtown department stores like Bonwit Teller, Op-penheim Collins & Co., Lit Brothers, and Snellenbergs, as well as other enterprises...

...to the suburbs, the idea of one-stop-and-park Sunday shopping has grown in popularity...

...They pointed out it would place Saturday sabbath observers at an economic disadvantage...

...The new law not only brought no end to the controversy but compounded the confusion...

...Governor David Lawrence, a Democrat and a Catholic who had narrowly won election in a predominantly Protestant state (some say with Reverend Forney's assistance), quickly announced his support...

...This case, together with others from Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Maryland, is now before the U.S...

...In the case of blue laws, political and economic pressures have become intertwined with the religious issue so that in a number of states Sunday has become a battleground as well as a day of rest and worship...

...Sunday closing majorities are easily obtained in legislatures and in referenda...

...Opposing them are discount chains and farmers' markets, minority religious groups such as Jews and Seventh Day Adventists, and civil libertarians...

...He scrawled across the face of the notice, "Null and void...

...He traveled to Harrisburg to testify before the House Rules Committee and wrote a four-page letter to each member of the Democratic-controlled House...

...In Philadelphia, Mayor Richardson Dilworth announced the city would move against the "Godless competition" of discount houses but not "mom and pop" stores...

...The first Sunday law was enacted in 320 A.D...

...They have also pointed to the religious origin of Sunday laws and argue that these laws elevate Sunday to the status of an official religion, thereby running afoul of the First Amendment barring the establishment of religion...

...Novelties were exempted...

...They argue that they are victims of religious discrimination since they are forced to close on Sunday while their religious beliefs require them to remain closed on Friday night and Saturday...

...The last few years have seen the rise of farmers' markets and discount department store chains such as E. J. Korvette, Two Guys From Harrison, and Bargain City, U.S.A...

...Police officials, plagued with serious crime, have been reluctant to arrest Sunday sellers...

...The constitutionality of Sunday laws has never been determined by the high court...

...The anti-blue law forces were also well organized...

...Dauphin County (Harrisburg) District Attorney Huette F. Dowling branded these wholesale arrests "an organized move by the discount boys of Philadelphia to make the law look ridiculous...

...It is no easy thing to observe Saturday as a day of rest in our society," said Rabbi Moses J. Burak, president of the Rabbinical Association of Philadelphia...

...The majority of this court held that the Bay State's Lord's Day Act favored one religion over another and was so riddled with exemptions and restrictions that it denied the orthodox Jewish plaintiffs and their customers equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment...

...Bargain City—there are now ten of these discount department stores in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and New Jersey—leases space to merchants, which enables Sylk to declare he is battling for the small businessman against the department stores...

...The anti-blue law forces were led by William H. Sylk of Philadelphia, president of Bargain City, U.S.A., and active in other business enterprises...

...The concept received rigorous enforcement in colonial New England where the "Puritan Oligarchy" reigned supreme...

...Whether the issue be the reading of a passage from the Bible in a public school, the erection of a creche at Christmas on a city hall lawn, or enforcement of blue laws, as in Bucks County, interreligious conflict is beginning to rival interracial difficulties as a source of community tension...

...This produced an angry charge from one legislator that there were those who were implying "there is something wrong with the Lord's Day...

...At the public hearings on the bill, Jewish and Seventh Day Adventist leaders pleaded for defeat of the bill...

...An advertising agency was hired to organize and direct a flow of mail to legislators...

...Sylk refused to dignify these charges by comment and charged Dowling publicly with working with "big business interests...

...Faced by this growing threat, big city downtown department stores, which are generally closed on Sunday, have sought enforcement of Sunday laws and strengthening of their penalties...

...As the decision of the high court is awaited, the movement to enforce and strengthen Sunday laws continues to gain momentum...

...At the 1959 legislative session, an amendment to the old blue law was introduced which spelled out specific merchandise that could not be sold on Sunday at retail, including clothing and wearing apparel, furniture, housewares, hardware, tools, paints, and jewelry...

...Bakeries can remain open but not certain delicatessens...

...But a battle broke out in the House...

...Over the years, Sunday laws have been only sporadically enforced...

...The entrance of Two Guys into Pennsylvania and the growth of other discount operations in the state crystallized the formation of a statewide coalition to work for a new blue law with a "Sunday punch...

...The issue, however, is not so easily dismissed...

...today twenty-four states have some form of Sunday work and recreation regulations...

...In many parts of the country, the coercive power of government is being employed increasingly to bring God into the affairs of man...

...Situated frequently on cheap land alongside highways just outside large cities, with plenty of free parking space and prices well below downtown department stores, these chains present an irresistible lure to shoppers...

...The broader issue, however, has been posed by Herbert Ehrmann, attorney for the orthodox Jewish plaintiffs in the Massachusetts case and president of the American Jewish Committee, who pointed out it was Jesus who enunciated the principle, "Do unto others that which you would have them do unto you...

...Church leaders testified there is nothing in it that would force a person to go to church on Sunday or interfere with the right of an orthodox or conservative Jew to worship on Saturday...

...This feeling has been heightened by the public reaction to a recent decision of a Federal court banning the reading of the Bible in the Pennsylvania public schools...

...And, since Sunday is a day convenient for most people, the argument goes, a state can designate that day for rest...

...The constitutionality of Sunday closing, however, has been shaken in a significant decision handed down by a lower Federal court in Massachusetts...

...The viewpoint expressed by Cotton Mather—that "our whole religion fares according to our Sabbath"—was widely recognized...

...Commenting on the Massachusetts law, a Federal jurist recently noted it is illegal to dig for clams on Sunday but not to dredge for oysters...

...Discount chain spokesmen and other merchants argued for letting the consumer decide whether or not to shop on Sunday...

...Generally, lower Federal courts have upheld these laws on the grounds that a state, under its police powers, may require one day of rest for its citizens for reasons of public health and safety...

...Shortly afterwards, several employees of Two Guys were arrested and fined $4 each plus court costs under a law enacted in 1794 following a yellow fever epidemic believed to be "a scourge on a wicked people...

...when Constantine embraced Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire...

...DISCORD on SUNDAY by MURRAY FRIEDMAN One Sunday last summer, Justice of the Peace Earl B. Dougherty decided to demonstrate the ridiculousness of Pennsylvania's blue law banning wordly employment on Sunday...

...When the bill was reported to the floor, an amendment supported by Jewish leaders was introduced to exempt those "persons who conscientiously observe the seventh day of the week" as their sabbath...

...It began in the fall of 1957 when Two Guys From Harrison, a large New Jersey discount chain, opened a branch near Allentown in the heart of Pennsylvania's "Bible Belt...

...Pennsylvania has been the scene of one of the most bitter of these battles...

...Litigation has further tied up enforcement...

...With the movement MURRAY FRIEDMAN is Pennsylvania area director for the American Jewish Committee...

...Starting out in his car at nine in the morning, with a thick bundle of mimeographed "conviction on view" notices on the seat beside him, the Bucks County squire tagged a radio announcer, reporters who followed him, guards at the strikebound Fair-less Works of United States Steel, and owners and employees of a variety of businesses...

...It consisted of representatives of the Pennsylvania American Federation of Labor, the Catholic Church, the Pennsylvania Retailers Association, and the Lord's Day Alliance of Pennsylvania...

...They have been joined by labor unions eager to shorten the work week, church groups (especially the more fundamentalist sects), rural and small town folk who resent the intrusion of bargain-type business, and small retailers who prefer to stay closed on Sunday...

...The preoccupation with man's fate, sometimes referred to as the revival of religion, has resulted in widespread efforts to plug up holes in America's moral defenses...

...At the head of the supporters of the bill stood one of Philadelphia's leading citizens and Democratic Party fund-raisers, Albert M. Greenfield, who had come to the United States in the Eastern European Jewish migration at the turn of the century...

...Within a short time, Two Guys' business soared past the $12 million mark and threatened Hess Brothers, the largest department store in the area...

...In recent years blue laws have been amended to permit the performance of sports and other amusements and exemptions have been obtained by certain businesses and occupations...

...The bill slipped through the Senate almost unnoticed...

...By the end of the day, he had handed out 225 notices and had become the center of a raging controversy in the state...

...Supreme Court, which is expected to rule on them this fall...

...The second is the revolution in American buying habits...

...The new measure raised the fine for such sales to $100 for the first offense, and $200 and a thirty-day jail sentence for subsequent violations...

...At the height of the House battle, there was an outbreak of enforcement of the 1794 law, including Squire Dougherty's highly publicized raids...

...A similar exemption is in force in twelve of the twenty-four states with Sunday laws...

...One of Squire Dougherty's "victims" was the comedienne, Peggy Cass, who had been appearing in the play, Born Yesterday...

...Passage of the new Sunday closing law intensified the Jewish community's feeling of difference...

...I'm supposed to have a bit of influence," Paar said...

...Scores of large and small businessmen, chambers of commerce, and labor union officials, however, registered their approval of the bill...

...Greenfield personally took charge of the effort to push the bill through...

...Sunday sellers must now determine which items can be sold and which, if sold, will bring $4 or $100 fines...

...Implicit in many of the editorial and pulpit discussions of the Bible reading case and blue law controversy is the belief that Jews have prospered in a "Christian society" and owe it to their neighbors not to insist upon their rights in matters deemed fundamental to the Christian majority...

...Newspapermen covering the Sunday law fight, however, saw it as a struggle between Greenfield and Sylk and labeled it "the battle of the millionaires...

...As a result, blue laws have become a hodge-podge of inconsistencies...

...Following World War II, two developments created renewed interest in them...

...So it is, he said, "that I feel the First and Fourteenth Amendments are there to translate into the basic law of our country the concept that just because you have a majority, you don't . . . take advantage of a minority...

...The amendment was defeated 116-68, and the bill went on to easy passage and signature by the Governor...

...but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord...

...Even Jews who are not Saturday observers resent being compelled to cease from business and limit their shopping on the Christian sabbath...

...Owner Max Hess, known for his aggressive merchandising, responded to the challenge by threatening in a newspaper advertisement to open on Sunday...

...My people are carrying a considerable burden, and we ought not to increase it to the breaking point...

...Still, those who are faithful to Judaism make that sacrifice on the altar of conscience and religious duty...

...Sunday closing has its origin in one of the Ten Commandments — "Six days may work be done...

...Soon after, in reply to a question from Jack Paar on his television show, Miss Cass said she had no intention of returning to Pennsylvania to pay the fine...