The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-05-17
A DAY OF REST

The Journal notes with great satisfaction
the proceedings of the Trades Union de-
handing a closing of barber shops on Sunday
as a step in the right direction, although there
is no good reason why BARRIERS should be sin
gled out, and a thousand and one other vo-
cations be permitted to run. Sunday is pre-
eminently the laboring mans day. 1t was
made for man; instituted as a day of rest for
physiological reasons as well as moral. When
the toilers of the country come to under
stand their rights and their power they will
demand of their employers the right to rest
one day in seven. This paper has for years
insisted that the civil law requiring a cessa-
ton of work on one day in the week should
rest wholly on the material interests involved,
leaving the moral phases to moral agencies
alone. Hence, work done on that
day should not be called "a
dissertation of the Sabbath" as it is in our
law, out a violation of a wholesome police ar
rangement. Nine-tenths of the difficulty of
enforcing the Sunday law grows out of the i'm
preston that it is an attempt to enforce relig-
ious obligations by statute. Take, for exam
pie, the liquor traffic. There is very little
difficulty in enforcing the prohibitory feature
of the law on election days, because the mo-
tive for such prohibition is purely secular.
Let it be understood that prohibition on Sun
day is enforced not because of religious con-
sideratioas, but because Of the increased dan
idleness on that day, and the work will be
easy. The same will be true when the mill
ions of employed shall say stelnly to their en-
ployers that they demand the rest which their
physicaln nature require, and stores, and shops,
and railroads, and all will hold one com
mon Sabbath-one universal day of rest.
But while the laboring man meekly bends to
the burden put upon him by his exacting
masters, he may. 1t has come to pass that the
millions are now the employed, and the few
are the bosses. There are no more individual
shops, in which the sole worker is the sole
proprietor, bat factories have swallowed up all
these. and the proprietors of d former period
are the employed of this, working for stipu-
lated wages. Labor associations have de-
terminel the number of hours that shall con
stitute a days work. Now let them bend their
associated energies to determining the number
Of days that shall constitute a weeks work, and
they viii have accomplished the most important
improvement in the condition of wage labor
ers. Not even the employed in saloons desire
to work seven days in the week. Three
fourths of the saloon keepers would be glad to
suspend business, but they are driven to it by
the other fourth who keep open. There is an
amalgamation Of trades-unions which takes
oversight Of the common interests of all wage
laborels. Let them take this matter in hand,
and twelve months will not elapse before, in
every State, there viii be laws that shall pro-
tect all classes of employees, and its very rea-
condolences will enforce it, alike against rail
roads and barber-shops. Then the laboring
man will begin to have one day with his fam
lily, that be may see them by daylight.