forwarded by Michael Hoover > Whose labor day is it really? > > by Fred Gaboury > > from the September 1.1995 issue of the > People's Weekly World. > > Who founded Labor Day -- and what difference does it make? > > Probably not much -- or does it? It's been 113 years since 25,000 > workers from 53 unions marched through New York City's Union Square in > the nation's first Labor Day parade on September 5, 1882. And it's > been 101 years since President Grover Cleveland signed legislation > making Labor Day an official holiday. > > Most of us were taught -- to the extent that we were taught anything > about labor history -- that Peter J. McGuire was the founder of Labor > Day. But in 1968 the International Association of Machinists (IAM) > challenged that version of history. > > The headline article of the Sept. 5, 1968 Machinist said, "It's time > to toast the real Maguire," and went on to document the claim that > Matthew Maguire, a machinist from Paterson, N.J., was the real father > of Labor Day. > > W. Willard Wirtz, then secretary of labor, settled the matter at the > next IAM convention. "There is no question as to who is the father of > Labor Day," he told the delegates, " ... so far as the Department of > Labor is concerned, he is Matt Maquire, the machinist." > > But what difference does it make? Isn't it enough that there is a > Labor Day -- a day that recognizes the contributions of the millions > of working men and women who create the nation's wealth? > > If all that's involved is setting history straight, we could end here. > But there's more to history than great men and women. There are also > ideas -- and history is the clash of ideas just as it is the battle > between classes -- between those who work for a living and those live > off those who work. And that helps to explain why, for nearly 75 > years, Peter J. McGuire was passed off as the father of Labor Day. > > According to Murray Zuckoff, whose research did much to straighten the > historical record, Maguire was a socialist -- a special kind of > socialist. As Zuckoff put it, Maguire was "a man deeply imbued with > the ideas of Marx." In today's world he would probably be a member of > the Communist Party. > > That -- Maguire's deep commitment to socialism as a follower of Karl > Marx -- was enough to send shivers up the spine of America's ruling > elite and their supporters in the leadership of the labor movement. > Thus, as they saw it, the need to find a "founder" for Labor Day: > someone not "tainted" as an advocate of socialism -- a society based > on common ownership of the means of producing wealth and distributing > it, a society where those who create the wealth share equitably in the > fruits of their labor. > > That person was Peter J. McGuire, conservative head of New York's > Carpenters Union, who once urged "the propriety" of setting aside a > day for labor at a New York Central Labor Union meeting. After that it > was easy -- and McGuire stood beside the president as Cleveland made > it official in 1894. > > Only the capitalists -- the class workers call "the Bosses" or "Big > Business" -- benefit from division in the ranks of workers. Thus the > development of "divide and rule" -- a tactic the capitalist class here > has refined to the nth degree. > > Part of that tactic is to keep the U.S. working class and its unions > separated from the world working class movement and from the ideas of > socialists and Communists. That is why, when the powers that be > finally acceded to the workers' demands for a national holiday > recognizing labor, they set it for September while workers in other > countries celebrate their holiday on May Day. > > In this way, American workers were further separated from their > brothers and sisters in other countries -- a tragedy made even more > tragic because it was AFL President Samuel Gompers who asked the > international labor movement, at that time led by associates of Karl > Marx, to establish an international day of labor solidarity to > commemorate the May 1, 1886 strike by American workers for an 8-hour > day! > > Another essential of "divide and rule" is to deny people their > heritage, to convince them that things have always been the way they > are and that nothing can -- or need -- be done about it. > > Another way is to deny or distort the contributions that syndicalists > like "Big Bill" Haywood, socialists like Eugene V. Debs and Communists > like William Z. Foster, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Gus Hall made to > the struggles of American workers. And, when it comes to Labor Day, > create and perpetuate the myth that someone -- anybody but a socialist > -- was the father of Labor Day. > > Without the men and women who shared a vision of a just society, where > no person could profit from the work of another -- without the > struggles they led and the ideas they fought for -- the American labor > movement and, for that matter, American society would be much > different from what it is today. > _________________________________________________________________
