The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-04-30
THE MAY DNE FESTIVAL.

Blood and blossoms; tears and tiaras; ferocity and flowers thus, by aIliteration's aTtfuI aid. one may characterize one of the oldest of the worlds festivals. May Day. It is now the day chosen by innocent youth for care-free frclics in the open, when the queen of the May is crowned with a tiara of posies and her loyal, if sOnlew hat enVi0uS, sub jects dance around May-poIes and sing and play games and renew their acquaintance with Rhus Tox- icodendron and Rhus Diversnoba- commonly known as poison ivy and poison oak. If is also the great an nual festival of the anarchists and the rcd reNO1utiOnistS of the world, when bearded and long haired men and short haired women meeting in secret corcIavas to plot against the existing order-where order happens to exist nova day5---or hold open meetings at which heads are often broken. There are certain spots on this troubled earth where. it must he admitted, the Reds will toner row havo the gibbest day they have 'ver known.
 The double significance of May Day. as a festival Of innocent joy and SLtllSltl ] iAE9r til'Hf ttS U o+N-StA DH'A'N t' the begirutug of written history "Thc aborlirztton Of tho Amu7on- ties" referred to in Scripture, meant the May festival of the Amnouites, at which the people paid homage to their god Moloch. The Syro-Phen- icians had a similar May Day ob- servaDce in honor of their principal male divinity, EaaI. Bonfi-es were built to prcpitiete the sun gods, and into those infants and young chjl- dren were hurled. After the per fora,arce of this human sacrifice the frantic worshippers, men, wo- men ard children. danced naked ahcut a rNalius. Such was the ter ribIe and obscene origin of the in nocCrt dance about the May-poles
 The next notable observance of May Day in the pages of history is under the gllisH of the ancient Rom an F!o~aIia, which was instituted in the year 241 B. c, on account of bad harvest. The festival, which was dedicated to Flora, the goddess of fertility, soon degenerated into @ wild orgy.
 The Phentcians spread their May Day observances throughout a large part of Europe, and in the forests of Germany and France and in Eng 
 savage ancestors observed the day with rites that included the sa crifice of human beings.
 May Day Gs labor holiday or as a day for workingmen's demonstra- tions is of recent origin. Although the union wOrkingmen of America now celebrate Labor Day in Septem- ber they were really responsible for the choice of the first of May as an international labor holiday. At the convention of the American Fedora tion of Labor held in St. Louis in 1888, President Samuel Gompers ad- vocated the setting apart of a cer- tain day as a labor holiday, when the toilers of America should agitatc for an eight-hour day. The first of May. 1890, was the date chosen.
 Following the American example, inc French Labor Congress chose the same day for a national demonstra- tion of the solidarity of Ia bor. The American Labor Day movement came to nothing. and when it was revived a September date was chos- en. In France, however, the ob- servance of the first of May was a great success and from there it spread to other European countries.