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2020 The Stream Labor Day - Understanding The

2nd, By Jim McKeon
Sometimes when I’m alone, especially
September when I escape to my little hideaway near a “Working Person’s Holiday”

stream behind the house, nostalgia creeps up
on my cobwebbed brain. Where did all the
When Is Labor Day?
| years go? - how the world has changed - how Monday in September in the United States, American tion and picnic. The First Labor Day
Labor Day, is a legal holiday celebrated on the first
life when I was a young boy has changed.
EXAMINER The early memories flood back: how I won- Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Canal Zone, and the Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, in
The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on
dered wide-eyed as the smoky old trains,
Virgin Islands.
wheezing and farting black smoke, splut-
Canada also celebrates Labour Day on the same
accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union.
In 1884 the first Monday in September was selected
IRISH tered by our back garden. My father sliding day. as the holiday, and the Central Labor Union urged sim-
down the grassy bank and limping across the
In European countries, China and other parts of the
railway tracks, his shortcut to work, to
return that night covered in soot; moving world, May Day, the first day in May, is a holiday to ilar organizations in other cities to follow the example
of New York and celebrate a “workingmen's holiday”
celebrate workers and labor unions. Before it became
home and holding my mother’s hand, as we an international workers holiday, May Day was a cele- on that date. The idea spread with the growth of labor
walked in silence behind a horse and cart bration of spring and the promise of summer. organizations, and in 1885 Labor Day was celebrated in
carrying our pyramid of furniture to greener many industrial centers of the country.
pastures. Life was simple then. The priest What Labor Day Means In the USA, governmental recognition first came
was God. Our pleasures were simple. There through municipal ordinances passed during 1885 and
For most people, Labor Day means two things: a
were no phones, no drugs, no muggings, day off and a chance to say goodbye to the summer. 1886. The first state bill was introduced into the New
radio or television but a weekly visit to the York legislature, but the first to become law was
cinema was our Mecca: tuppence to get in to But why is it called Labor Day? Labor Day is a day set passed by Oregon on February 21, 1887. By 1894, 23
witness Tarzan wrestling with a crocodile; aside to pay tribute to working men and women. It has other states had adopted the holiday in honor of work-
the crocodile didn’t stand a chance; Roy been celebrated as a national holiday in the United ers, and on June 28 of that year, Congress passed an act
Rogers single-handedly outshooting a tribe States and Canada since 1894. making the first Monday in September of each year a
“Labor Day differs in every essential way from the
of Cherokee and then pausing to sing a song; legal holiday in the District of Columbia and the terri-
the antics of Laurel and Hardy and the other holidays of the year in any country,” said Samuel tories.
Three Stooges and, best of all, Flash Gordon Gompers, founder and longtime president of the There is a tradition of not wearing white after Labor
outwiting the evil Emperor Ming as he tried American Federation of Labor. “All other holidays are Day. This fashion faux pas dates back to the late
to conquer the universe. Every Friday night in a more or less degree connected with conflicts and Victorian era. The Emily Post Institute explains that
battles of man’s prowess over man, of strife and dis-
we all cheered as Flash Gordon disappeared white indicated you were still in vacation mode, so nat-
into the clouds, mission accomplished, until cord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one urally when summer ended so did wearing white. C
next Friday night. And it didn’t end there as nation over another. Labor Day...is devoted to no
my friends and I rode imaginary horses, fir- man, living or dead, to no sect, race, or nation.” Did You Know?
ing imaginary guns at imaginary Indians all Who Started Labor Day? New York has the highest union membership rate at
the way home. I now lived at the top of a
winding red-bricked lane. All human life was Like most cultural events, there is still some doubt 24.7 percent. South Carolina has the lowest rate at 2.1 per-
there yet we all got on well. We had no over its origination. Some records show that Peter J. cent
other choice. Pretentious was a word not yet McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of About 75 percent of Americans say that they plan to
invented. With no work it was Dagenham or Carpenters and Joiners and a co-founder of the keep working after age 65
Labor Day has become an important weekend for retail
bust. The SS Innisfallen was always full on American Federation of Labor, was first in suggesting
its tearful journey across the English a day to honor working men and women. But many sales, said to be second only to Black Friday in sales.
Channel. believe that Matthew Maguire, a machinist, not Peter Ironically this means more than 24 percent of all workers in
Now as I stretch my legs and watch this McGuire, founded the holiday. the U.S. (retail workers) may work harder and longer on
stream meandering by, sneaking behind the Recent research seems to support the contention Labor Day
The National Education Association is the biggest
lane until it disappeared underground even that Matthew Maguire proposed the holiday in 1882 union today with roughly 3.2 million people, including inac-
more memories flood back:they were happy while serving as secretary of the Central Labor Union tive and lifetime members
times yet a cruel savagery lurked in the back- in New York. What is clear however is that the In 1955, the first Waffle House opened on Labor Day in
ground which was deemed to be the norm. Central Labor Union adopted the Labor Day propos- Avondale Estates, GA
al and appointed a committee to plan a demonstra-
A captured cat would be callously thrown to
a pack of dogs and cheered while it was torn
to shreds. Old dogs would be regularly hung
from nearby trees. It wasn’t confined to ani-
mals. A handicapped boy, convulsed in a fit,
would continually bash his head against a
wall until the frenzy subsided or he knocked
himself unconscious. It frightened me to see
him lying on the ground, his face covered in
blood, at peace with the world, until the
next fit. It also shows the cruelty of that time
when it was common, and accepted, to see a
horse being whipped unmercifully or a
sealed bag of unwanted pups dumped in this
very stream. Yet, all through the summer,
this innocuous stream was our heaven. In
our ignorance we knew nothing else. It was
banked up with rocks and sods. This was
where I, like everyone else, learned to swim.
We didn’t care about pollution, dead dogs,
water rats or broken bottles. C