Volume 18 , Issue 33

Labor Day, What Is It Really?

"Labor's Own Day." How the Toilers came to be recognized in the calendar. There was legislation in many states. And the meaning of Labor Day as interpreted by Mr. Powderly. The National Law, as found in the Evening Star, in Washington, District of Columbia, dated 2 September 1895, Monday, page 8.

Found on Newspapers.com

It was 28 June 1894, President Cleveland approved an act of Congress making the first Monday in September of every year a legal holiday in the District of Columbia. Previous to this time the day had been celebrated here with much ceremony by the laboring men and had already become known by the now familiar term of Labor Day. It needed only national recognition to make it one of the most important holidays of the year. In September, 1895, the second celebration of the of the day in the District was a legal holiday that took place, and it was marked by a parade of the various organizations affiliated in the common cause and upholding the dignity of labor that would be memorable to those who participated as well as those who study the lessons it would teach from he standpoint of observers.

We find the origin of Labor day was interesting. September 5, 1882, the various labor organizations of New York Ciy and vicinity paraded through the streets of Gotham and afterward held a picnic, at which addresses were made. At that time the Knights of Labor was a secret order and no work connected with it was conducted openly. Public expressions of the members went out to the world in an indirect but none the less influential way, and the local assemblies belonging to the order were represented under different names in the Central Labor Union. ON the day in question the general assembly was convened int he city, and its members were invited to review the parade. While the procession was passing the reviewing stand Robert Price of Lonaconing remarked to Richard Griffiths, then general worthy foreman of the Knights of Labor, "This is a labor day in earnest, Uncle Dick," From this the first Monday in September was perpetually christened as Labor day.

In 1883 the New York labor organizations paraded on that day of the week and the month, and in 1884, when the Central Labor Union of New York was discussing the question of parading, George K. Lloyd, a Knight of Labor, moved that the first Monday in September be formally designated as Labor day. The resolution was unanimously adopted, and steps were immediately taken for the purpose of getting the legislature to enact a law making Labor day a legal holiday forever.

The movement spread rapidly. It was quickly successful in New York state and from there it extended to other states with gratifying results, and at last received national recognition by its adoption in the District of Columbia, as described int he opening paragraph of the article. The first Monday in September was also celebrated as Labor day in Alabama, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa,Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas and Washington. The first Monday of October was Labor day in California and in Louisiana; the 25th of November was the date on which cities with a population of 100,000 or more observed the holiday. In Wisconsin the day was designated by the governor of the state. It would be seen that no less than twenty-seven of the states of the Union had designated Labor day by legislative enactment or otherwise as a legal holiday. In New York a measure was first introduced which recognized and designated Labor day as a legal holiday, while Oregon was the first to make such a measure a law.

In Europe the 1st of May was universally adopted as a day on which to discuss the questions that confront labor, and so it may be regarded as Labor day there. There were also many trades unions parades in the cities and towns of the United States on the 1st of May, but this habit did not in any way interfere with the labor observance of the legal Labor day holiday.

What Labor Day Means
"Properly understood," wrote one Mr. T. B. Powderly, recently, "Labor day is a day on which all that is ambitious, noble, lofty and grand in the nature of the workman should be appealed to. Those who discuss the questions of the hour before meetings of industrialists on that day should be educators - preachers of the gospel of humanity and its needs, not mammon and its greeds. It was their duty to teach a doctrine of independence of thought and action to the industrial. The rights, of man to the earth and its products, the rights of man to all that labor creates, and the duty of the industrial as a self-reliant citizen should all occupy the thought of the speaker, and be the theme of his discourse.

"Labor day is to be a day of rest, of recreation and education. The physical in man is to rest while the mental is to be improved. The day is to be celebrated not in honor of any one man living or dead, but in honor of and by living, throbbing, pulsating humanity, whose needs stand higher than respect for the memory of the dead or regard for their wishes. Today, tomorrow, the future, are all before us on Labor day. Of these we think, talk, and for these we work. That which will best serve the living men and women of today and the future should receive the careful attention of all who take part in honoring that greatest of all factors in ministering to the good of the world - labor.

"So far Labor day is an experiment. Whether it shall continue as a day on which the duties of citizenship shall be taught, the needs of living humanity discussed, and the duties we owe to the millions who would come upon the death to make or mar its future shall be considered, remains to be seen. From a position of mental servitude the most degrading and humiliating, the workman has advance to higher altitudes in mental and physical freedom. From a servitude in which he could, without question, be killed for the amusement of his master, the workman has emerged, and now he stands free from every thrall save his own prejudices of creed, of craft, of politics and of race. If Labor day is observed as it ought to be, the gospel of humanity will be understood by all men and women; there will ben staves to employer, party, boss, or creed. 'Love thy neighbor as thyself, though he bow not before the same altar. Do unto your neighbor as you would have your neighbor to unto you' will have a meaning not now understood as they should be this side of the portals where eternity begins and God rules in the presence of those he calls from earth.
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