| The picnics, speeches, and parades of
today' s Labor Day were all part of the celebration, held in New York City in
1882. Its promoter was an Irish-American labor leader named Peter J. McGuire. A
carpenter by trade, McGuire had worked since the age of eleven, and in 1882 was
president of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners (UBCJ).
Approaching the City' s Central Labor Union that summer, he proposed a holiday
that would applaud (赞许) "the industrial spirit—the great vital force of every
nation. "On September 5 his suggestion bore fruit, as the estimated 10,000
workers, many of them ignoring their bosses' warnings, left work to march from
Union Square up Fifth Avenue to 42rid Street. The event gained national
attention, and by 1893 thirty states had made Labor Day an annual
holiday. The quick adoption of the scheme may have indicated less about the state lawmakers' respect for working people than about a fear of risking their anger. In the 1880s the United States was a land sharply divided between the immensely wealthy and the very poor. Henry George was accurate in describing the era as one of "progress and poverty", in a society in which factory owners rode in private Pullmans while ten-year-olds slaved in the mines, strong anti-capitalist feelings ran high. Demands for fundamental change were common throughout the labor press. With socialists demanding an end to "wage slavery" and anarchists(无政府主义者)singing the praises of the virtues of dynamite(炸药), middle-of-the-roaders like Samuel Gompers and McGuire seemed attractively mild by comparison. One can imagine practical capitalists seeing Labor Day as a bargain: A one-day party certainly cost them less than paying their workers decent wages. |