The Press., 1894-01-04
(Hartford Courant.) FOR WORKINGMEN TO THINK OF.

HON WONN11NGMEN V k11Nh OT
 The history of the persistent and finally successful attempt to get the doors of the Metropolitan Museum of Art open to the public on Sunday is still fresh in the rec- ollectiou of our readers. The argument employed was that poor people could not visit the museum on week days
 The New York Journal of Commerce reports that the number of Sunday visit ors at the museum has already dwindled down from IA ,263 to 5,033, and that near ly all are foreigners, that the Chinese and Jananese colonies are largely represented, and that the educational effect is not so apparent as could be wished. "Many ask the attendants to show them the fat wo- man, the skeleton of Crowley, and make the most absurd inquiries about the show, proving that they have not visited the place for the study of art''
 Now that the museum is open seven days in the week, our contemporary ex- poets to see movement for a Sunday opening of all New York's public art col lections, libraries, concert halls, and thea ters. The argument will be the same that it is the one day on which the poor wage-earners can go, and that it would be everyway better for them to be inn proving their minds, or hearing good mu- sic, or seeing Q good play of Sunday evening, than to be swilling in the saloon or loafing in the street.
 So it would be, unquestionably, if that were the only alternative, and if there nothing else to be thought of than the Comparative merits of this or the other way of spending the Sunday evening. But there is something else to be thought of, something of the most momentous inn portance, too, to the workingmen and to their children after them.
 The experiment just begun in New York has now been carried almost (not quite) to finish in Germany. First, the relig- ious sanctions af the day of rest were gradually broken down and brushed aside; the day was turned into a jolly popular holiday.
 What followed? Let the Journal of Commerce tell us what followed:-
 The sequence was perfectly natural and might have been expected. Here were immense establishments throughout the German Empire idle one day in seven, during which time the vast capital invest ed was earning nothing for the owners. Why could not the wheels of all that vast machinery be set in motion on the first day of the week? What was there to hinder such service Surely if the hours were not too sacred for wild frolic and general hilarity, for beer-drinking and games of every sort, then the sober work of life was not out of place on the day hitherto devoted to rest. And the work began, until now, according to a recent official report there are few places in all the Empire where skilled mechanic can find employment if he objects to seven days of unremitting toll.
 It is because they do not want to see American workmen forced to work seven days in the week that many students of economics and of history who do not sec anything wrong per SC in the enjoyment of good pictures, good music, etc., on any day in the seven, are nevertheless con- cerned and alarmed at any weakening of the existing muniments and safeguards of the weekly rest-day.
 It is because this weekly rest-day is in constantly increasing peril in an age in which the fierceness of industrial and mer- camille competition constantly increases that the workmen themselves should ar ray themselves solidly on the side of it's defenders. They have vastly more at stake than the so-called moneyed and leisured classes. If they permit it to be filched away, under whatever spacious pretenses, the punishment will fall on them and on their children.