Category: Labor Day
Happy Labor Day
There was a time when Americans had no choice but to hammer their fruits and vegetables to obtain steeled sinews and refreshed labour.
Happy Labor Day
Labor Day Parade March Composer: H. C. Verner Published By S. Brainard’s Sons Co. Chicago, 1896.
CHORUS
Proud-ly we march– on “La-bor Day,”
With hearts so true, to guide the way;
Steps light and free, our ban-ner’s dis-played,
On “La-bor Day Par-ade.”
Click on images to enlarge & copy piano sheet music, or download in .pdf format here.
Background story of the 1894 Pullman Riots and aftermath here. More Labor Day stuff here.
Happy Labor Day!
I’m not an historian, but here’s the gist.
In 1894 there was a recession in the US, and Chicago engineer, industrialist and developer George Pullman had to lay off a large chunk of his workforce (yet he kept about 2/3rds on the payroll).
Some of those laid off were anarchists, socialists and Marxists (the Progressive Movement was on the march) and they organized a strike, not only for the layoffs, but because Pullman wouldn’t reduce the rent for the housing he built and owned. But they did more than protest. They turned to violence and arson.
They burned the buildings and product of their employer (The Pullman Car Company) and others. The damage affected the rail commerce of 27 states, the US Postal Service, and thousands of workers and their families not directly affected by the layoffs. Dozens were killed during the riots.
Note that the arson and violence didn’t affect Pullman nearly as much as it did to the thousands of people who benefited from Pullman’s brilliance, including engineering underground sewage systems for the city of Chicago.
In that year, democrats controlled the House, the Senate AND the Presidency. What did President Cleveland do? He gave the “strikers” an Official Holiday. Then a few days later, he sent in the U.S. Military to kick ass on his own constituents.
Even as Pullman Company and railroad workers were striking, Congress passed legislation in June 1894 making the first Monday in September a federal legal holiday to recognize and celebrate labor. President Grover Cleveland signed the bill into law June 28, 1894, a few days before sending federal troops to Chicago.
“It was a way of being supportive of labor. Labor unions were a constituency of the Democrat Party at the time, and it didn’t look good for Cleveland, who was a Democrat, to be putting down this strike.”
[Richard Schneirov, professor of history, founder of the local chapter of the SDS, 1966, Grinnel University.]Federal troops were recalled from Chicago on July 20, and the Pullman strike was declared over in early August. Eugene V. Debs, arrested at the height of the violence along with several other ARU leaders, was charged with violating the injunction and served six months in jail. Though the ARU disbanded, Debs would emerge as the leader of the nation’s growing socialist movement, running for president five times on the Socialist Party ticket.
And Karl Marx smiled.
Happy Labor Day
Happy Labor Day
Crack open some beer and hoist one to everyone who works for a living.
Happy Labor Day.
[Found here.]
Happy Labor Day
Happy Socialism Day – An Opinion
Once May Day was coopted by socialists (to commemorate the 1917 Communist Bolshevik Revolution) President Grover Cleveland sought to distance an observance to honor those who worked in jobs requiring physical exertion. Labor Day was created as a sop to the unions, and it accomplished little except to foment class envy, the lever used by Leftists throughout history.
Labor Day was easily coopted by Unions, who are by definition socialist. Work too hard or too efficiently, you make the sluggards look bad. That’s what I was told, as was my father – work at average or below, nothing more, or you’re out of a job. When the top producers drop to the mean, the mean drops even lower.
There’s something obviously wrong and inherently evil with that credo, and I never bought into it.
Every worker starts out as a pissant. Few workers stay at that level… unless they want to. Who is dumb enough to want long-term minimum wage? I certainly didn’t.
Note that there is no holiday respecting the one institution that supports labor, pays for labor, frees people from impoverished economic slavery and provides step stones to prosperity, and that is Free-Market Capitalism.
Anyone who tells you otherwise is either ignorant or a liar.
BTW, here’s your bratwurst. Mustard’s over there.
Bunk
Tacky Raccoons 