Just another day to shotgun beer

What the hell is Labor Day?

That’s a question that seems to boggle the minds of theworld’s top thinkers these days. Forget why we are here andif we are alone. Labor Day ranks higher on my list ofimportance.

In order to evaluate what Labor Day is, we need to identify whatwe already know about the dubious holiday. It is Labor Day, and yetthere is specifically no labor on the day. When I think of LaborDay, I picture a woman pushing a 6-pound bundle of joy through herbirth canal, while the doctor pauses in confusion as to the gender…but …um … maybe that was just my birth.

Regardless, we know that Labor Day is a day when we do nothingand afterwards we don’t wear white (of course my pastycomplexion prohibits me from abiding this rule).

Against my personal ethics I did a little research, and thesignificance of Labor Day seems to vary greatly among people of allbackgrounds and professions. An engineering major at the Universityof Texas-Austin, senior Warren Lipschitz, comments that to himLabor Day is, “Umm…a day to drink beer and go to thelake.” Indeed an interesting contention, however, my hungerfor knowledge about this holiday drove me further in my quest forenlightenment.

According to the United States Department of Labor web site:”Labor Day differs in every essential way from the otherholidays of the year in any country,” says Samuel Gompers,founder and longtime president of the American Federation ofLabor.

“All other holidays are in a more or less degree connectedwith conflicts and battles of man’s prowess over man, ofstrife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by onenation over another. Labor Day … is devoted to no man, living ordead, to no sect, race, or nation.”

Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of thelabor movement and is dedicated to the social and economicachievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly nationaltribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength,prosperity and well-being of our country.

More than 100 years after the first Labor Day observance, thereis still some doubt as to who first proposed the holiday forworkers.

Some records show that Peter J. McGuire, general secretary ofthe Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a cofounder of theAmerican Federation of Labor, was first in suggesting a day tohonor those “who from rude nature have delved and carved allthe grandeur we behold.”

But Peter McGuire’s place in Labor Day history has notgone unchallenged. Many believe that Matthew Maguire, a machinist,not Peter McGuire, founded the holiday.

Recent research seems to support the contention that MatthewMaguire, later the secretary of Local 344 of the InternationalAssociation of Machinists in Paterson, N.J., proposed the holidayin 1882 while serving as secretary of the Central Labor Union inNew York.

What is clear is that the Central Labor Union adopted a LaborDay proposal and appointed a committee to plan a demonstration andpicnic.

The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Sept. 5, 1882, inNew York City, in accordance with the plans of the Central LaborUnion. The Central Labor Union held its second Labor Day holidayjust a year later, on Sept. 5, 1883.

In 1884 the first Monday in September was selected as theholiday, as originally proposed, and the Central Labor Union urgedsimilar organizations in other cities to follow the example of NewYork and celebrate a “workingmen’s holiday” onthat date. The idea spread with the growth of labor organizations,and in 1885 Labor Day was celebrated in many industrial centers ofthe country.

The first governmental recognition of Labor Day came throughmunicipal ordinances passed during 1885 and 1886. From themdeveloped the movement to secure state legislation. The first statebill was introduced into the New York legislature, but the first tobecome law was passed by Oregon on Feb. 21, 1887.

By 1894, 23 other states had adopted the holiday in honor ofworkers, and on June 28 of that year, Congress passed an act makingthe first Monday in September of each year a legal holiday in theDistrict of Columbia and the territories.

The form that the observance and celebration of Labor Day shouldtake were outlined in the first proposal of the holiday — astreet parade to exhibit to the public “the strength andesprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations” of thecommunity, followed by a festival for the recreation and amusementof the workers and their families.

This became the pattern for the celebrations of Labor Day.Speeches by prominent men and women were introduced later, as moreemphasis was placed upon the economic and civic significance of theholiday.

Still later, by a resolution of the American Federation of Laborconvention of 1909, the Sunday preceding Labor Day was adopted asLabor Sunday and dedicated to the spiritual and educational aspectsof the labor movement.

The character of the Labor Day celebration has undergone achange in recent years, especially in large industrial centerswhere mass displays and huge parades have proved a problem. Thischange, however, is more a shift in emphasis and medium ofexpression. Labor Day addresses by leading union officials,industrialists, educators, clerics and government officials aregiven wide coverage in newspapers, radio, and television.

The vital force of labor added materially to the higheststandard of living and the greatest production the world has everknown and has brought us closer to the realization of ourtraditional ideals of economic and political democracy.

It is appropriate, therefore, that the nation pay tribute onLabor Day to the creator of so much of the nation’s strength,freedom, and leadership — the American worker.

So this is for you, the American worker, that we sit back andshotgun as many beers as we can in 24 hours. Call me cynical, buthow then does Labor Day differ from every other holiday?

One question that I didn’t find an answer to was why weare not supposed to wear white after this glorious day. Maybeit’s so the dirt doesn’t show as vividly on our clotheswhen we go back to riveting the fighter planes at the machinery.Who knows? All I have to say is thank you to the American workerfor making sure that there is another day in the calendar thatguarantees I won’t have to get up before noon. God Bless.