1905 on lsd.
In a New York Time’s Editorial today, Bigger is Easier, David Brooks says it’s time for US lawmakers (in these polarized times) to marry ideas on the left and right in an intellectually coherent way. He describes how this might be done in the area of social welfare.
Funny, I immediately thought of the Lord’s Day Act of 1908, in Canada.
The conservative elements in the Presbyterian Church joined with the labour union leaders to pass this law that made it illegal to conduct business between 12 pm Saturday and 12 pm Sunday.
Well, Ministers of the Church were allowed to work. As were others in ‘mercy’ callings.
Jews, whose Sabbath was a day earlier,were not allowed to break the new law, even to sell bread.
And the motion picture shows, which were supposed to close, mostly stayed open, illegally, probably paying fines to the police. If you give tired, overworked young people the day off, they will need something to do.
It’s the law of unintended consequences.
Of course, suffrage got passed through an unholy alliance between ‘new women’ and temperance types, although the division isn’t as cut and dry as I once imagined.
I still haven’t figured out if the suffragettes believed that women were so superior to men that if they got the vote, the world would suddenly become a better place, because ‘all men thought about was making money,” or if they just said it in their speeches to rouse the righteous, who did not believe, in any way, that women should be able to work in most any profession, alongside the men, should they so chose.
They did believe, however, in making the world a better, purer, whiter place.
My God, things have changed so little. There are few women in high places in politics, and the ones that are there are just as bad as the men. Or in some illustrious cases, much worse.
