Every week, the nation is asked to return to work, and every week it is asked on a Monday. This has been the practice for as long as there have been weeks, and it has gone largely unexamined. The Editorial Board has examined it.
The Board began by hearing from those who oppose Monday. Their case is serious. Monday arrives with no warning other than Sunday, which many people regard as a warning. It places a full week ahead of the citizen, and it offers, in compensation, a cup of coffee that was not made by the citizen. The Board takes these objections seriously. The Board has, in fact, had several of them.
The Board then heard from those who support Monday. Their case is also serious. Monday, they note, is the day on which the week becomes possible. It is the day when things are begun, and a thing that is begun may later be finished, or at least continued. They point out that Tuesday would not exist without it. The Board found this argument difficult to refute, and then found that it did not wish to.
Both sides, in the Board’s view, have conducted themselves with great seriousness. Neither has made a claim that the Board could dismiss out of hand. The Board commends the supporters of Monday for their optimism and the opponents of Monday for their candor, and it regrets that these two qualities have not been found in the same person on the same morning.
The matter is not as simple as either side believes. The Board wishes to say, first, that it does not propose to abolish Monday. A nation that abolished Monday would simply have a different first day, and in a short time the objections would transfer to it. Second, the Board does not propose to reform Monday. Reform would require a committee, and the Board is the committee. It would have to reform itself, and the Board has been through that once already this year.
What the Board proposes is something more modest, and more fitting. It proposes that Monday be treated with the respect due to any institution of long standing that no one has been able to improve. It should be acknowledged, observed, and endured, in that order.
Accordingly, the Board is for Monday. The Board has reservations. These reservations are substantial, they are carefully considered, and the Board will not be listing them, in the interest of allowing the reader to arrive at his or her own.
The Board notes that this position is consistent with its position on Tuesday, which it has not yet taken, and will not take until it has heard from Wednesday.
In closing, the Board is moved to say that the days of the week, taken together, represent a remarkable achievement of human cooperation, and that it hopes the nation will continue to show up for them, as far as it is able, whenever it is asked.