Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1899-04-21
MAY DAY GOOD ENOUGH.

Ed. STANDAND:
The latest fad in the shape of man
worship is an attempt to have the peo-
pie OF the State OF Washington change
the good old-fashioned Merry May to
Dewey Day"
Away back in almost prehistoric
times the month of May was made
sacred to Mdia, one of the seven SIS
tiers called 1.-THE Pleiades," daughters
of Atlas and Pieione. The significa.
ton of Maia in the original is "moth-
err" Hence will be seen the beautiful
consistency in this appellation of the
month; involving as it does the ma.
ternity of new life, swelling buds and
springing verdure.
Our name of the month thus comes
directly from the cherishing goddess
who is supposed to give us all the
beatitudes of the opening year as fond
ly couched in the mating of the birds;
the carnival OF flowers; the whisper.
ings of young love, joy, innocence and
purity; to say nothing of the buoyant
hopes of the husbandman.
Contrast these things with the grue-
some associations that would legiti-
mately cluster around the proposed
Dewey Day.; such as the unleashing
of the dogs of war and their hideous
baying mingled with the shrieks of
dying combatants and all the unspeak-
able horrors of modern warfare.
From time immemorial, age, youth
and beauty have sauntered forth into
the inviting fields upon the LIST of May
and We'd with each other in the enjoy.
ment of Natures passing loveliness.
May Day, according to its olden
time regime, lifts the soul to heaven
and to God; Dewey Day, if appropri.
ately observed, can give us only a
smack of the hell made manifest by
the evil passions and unbridled ambi-
tons of our fallen race.
More than a thousand years prior to
our Christian era, the people of north
ern Europe, as we'll as the more pol
ished habitants of classic lands, re-
garded that time of the year coinci-
dent with the opening days of May, as
a propitious season between gods and
men; and no pageantry in the world
to-day exceeds the stately pomp and
solemnity that characterized the May
Day sacrifices and rejoicings of those
simple prOgenitors of modern human
ity.
Invocation, feasting, music and
beguiled the hours of day,
nor was the programme relaxed till the
Great Bear had rounded Polaris and
the astral lights were turned down by
angelic attendants.
What May Day was then, it is essen.
TALLY in spirit to-day, among the peas
antry of Great Britain, Scandinavia
and every hamlet in continental Eu.
rope. In point of fact, judged by its
folklore romance and world wide dis
semination, the literature OF May Day
is second only to that OF Christmastide.
The former is the more time-honored,
historically speaking, but for obvious
reasons the latter is the more sacred
to every Christian heart.
Since the days of Chaucer and Spen-
ser, May Day literature has figured as
an unbroken song of JOY, awakening
the echoes of every land.
Then let us Danish the thought of
frittering away this rich legacy of the
ages and turning our Merry May into
q cold anniversary of modern bonn
If a day should be set apart for COM
the battle of Manila, then
the sacking and fall of Santiago de
Cuba is equally deserving of national
honor.
But if this sort of thing continues
to 60 on unchecked in our pending
conflicts and those to come, we shall
have more legal holidays than the pur-
suits of peace can protitably utilize
for they will far outnumber the NOV
able feasts and Saints days of ecclesi-
asticsl nomenclature.
The people of the United States,
have the political right to
make gods of their heroes if they
choose so to do, but they have no
right to make plagiarists and icono-
clasts of themselves by stealing holi-
day observed by enlightened Christen-
dom and breaking down the beautiful
images which for ages have adorned
its temples.
There is such a thing as OVERRIDING
good intentions. Dewey has already
been sung and played, marched and
danced by the musicians of the coun-
try; ambitious poets have strained
themselves into chronic imbecility in
the mad search for silly jingles that
will rhyme with his name; while hun
dreds of newborn babies all over the
land have been christened in his honor.
He may not have been kissed by so
many morbidly inclined young girls
as HObsOn, but muscular minded wo-
men have sent him enough laundried
shirts, embroidered nighties and nap
kins to last him through his probable
lifetime. Finally he has been Adj
miraled and put on the pay roll for a
salary of $4,000 year.
All this is quite enough for present
purposes without immolating on the
altar of overstrained sentimentality u
venerable institution that vas in pop
ular vogue thirty centuries before the
United States had being.
l.. P. YEMEN.
OLYMPIA, April Is, 1899.