Our annual celebration of Labor Day just passed, and like most holidays it was just another day with no mail delivery. Was there any celebration? It has no connection to religion, or veterans, or the passage of any declaration, so what’s the deal? The day seems to mark an unofficial end of summer. The school year begins, lake cabins are closed up, and a variety of high school, college, and professional sports entertain their followers. Some retailers claim it is one of the largest sale dates of the year, second only to the Christmas season’s Black Friday. Unfortunately with the passage of time, we’ve forgotten the reason for commemorating it.
In the latter part of the 19th century workers began demanding better conditions.
They adopted the slogan “Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what we will!” The roots of Labor Day grew out of violent clashes between labor and police during the Haymarket Riot in 1886 when thousands of workers in Chicago took to the streets to demand an eight-hour workday. The term Haymarket Riot has become one of those buzzword phrases that loses meaning after the passage of time. I had to look it up.
The Haymarket of Chicago consists of a large space holding a public scale where farmers once brought their hay for weighing and selling . Because it was an open area, it could accommodate large gatherings of people, and on May 3, 1886 did just that. The time had arrived when a nationwide labor upheaval of workers began protesting work conditions. A general strike was called for in the city and tens of thousands of them walked out and began marching. In this market place, historians tell us the roots of the labor movement began for better pay, safer working conditions, and fewer working hours.
A large cross-section of workers participated this day, some were thought to possess ulterior motives for doing so. At the McCormick Reaper plant striking workers began fighting with non-union “scabs.” Police arrived, wielded their clubs, and shot pistols into the crowd, wounding several and killing two. The next day, May 4, saw smaller crowds, but die-hard strikers and some anarchists gathered again. The last speaker spoke from a hay wagon and spewed fiery language which inflamed many of them.
At this point the police had heard enough and started advancing on the crowd. Any chance for a peaceful conclusion to the day ended when someone in the crowd threw a dynamite stick into the knot of policemen where it exploded and caused death and injury. They panicked and started shooting into the strikers to cause a chaotic scene. Sixty officers lay wounded and seven died. Several dozen civilians were injured and at least four were killed.
Other issues issues arose in addition to hours, pay, and safety after people settled down and analyzed the situation: freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to free assembly, the right to a fair trial by a jury of peers and the right of workers to organize and negotiate for things like the eight-hour day.
Just like today, immigrants with their loyalties in question received a good deal of the blame for the violence. People elsewhere in the world who experienced many of the same conditions closely watched events unfold here. Many countries recognize May 1 as Labor Day; some call it May Day, some call it International Workers’ Day. In the U. S. and Canada we celebrate it on the first Monday of September. Separate monuments in Chicago honoring both the policemen and the protesters can be found. As for its official status, Grover signed the law on June 28, 1894 making the first Monday of each September a national holiday.
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