Volume 14 , Issue 18

NW Okie's Corner

Happy May Day as April 2012 ends on this Monday evening! Most citizens in the United States probably think May Day is another rite of Spring. BUT . . . What and How is May Day celebrated around the World? We found this little poem for May Day Workers online by Walter Crane, The Workers' Maypole, 1894

. . . Let the winds lift your banners from far lands
With a message of strife and of hope:
Raise the Maypole aloft with its garlands
That gathers your cause in its scope....

. . . Stand fast, then, Oh Workers, your ground,
Together pull, strong and united:
Link your hands like a chain the world round,
If you will that your hopes be requited.
When the World's Workers, sisters and brothers,
Shall build, in the new coming years,
A lair house of life -- not for others,
For the earth and its fulness is theirs.

One of the origins of May Day came about via Australia using a proletarian holiday celebration as a means to attain the eight-hour work day that was first born in Australia. The workers there decided in 1856 to organize a day of complete stoppage together with meetings and entertainment as a demonstration in favor of the eight-hour day. At first, the Australian workers intended this only for the year 1856. But this first celebration had such a strong effect on the proletarian masses of Australia, enlivening them and leading to new agitation, that it was decided to repeat the celebration every year.

Western Labor Parades began on May 1, 1886, when working men mobilized in support of the eight-hour workday in cities across the United States. The Western Labor Parades is when eight-hour movement in Chicago, less than 30,000 laboring men took a holiday, willingly or unwillingly, representing the first day of the era in which eight hours shall constitute a day's work and 10 hours pay shall be gotten for eight hours' work. The strikers marched through the streets and listened to lengthy and aggressive speeches, but with no violence attempted. How did we get away from that celebration and why don't we mobilize and celebrate it today?

Happy May Day to the Workers!

Tell the GOP, "Stop the War On Women"
Good Night & Good Luck searching your family ancestry!   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

---