This National Holiday is dedicated to you –

       As we begin another School year for our youngsters, it’s ironic that the National Holiday “Labor Day” coincides with the nurturing of young minds.  The Labor Movement has fought against child labor and was the cause of this national holiday, hence these excerpts from the Department of Labor “The History of Labor Day”.

            “Labor Day differs in every essential way from the other holidays of the year in any country,” said Samuel Gompers, founder and longtime president of the American Federation of Labor.  “All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflicts and battles of man’s prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over another.  Labor Day. . . devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race, or nation.

         Labor Day was first celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882 in New York City .  In 1884 the first Monday in September was selected as the holiday, as originally proposed, and the Central Labor Union urged similar organizations in other cities to follow the examples of new York and celebrate a “workingmen’s holiday” on that date.  On June 28, 1894 , Congress passed an act making the first Monday in September of each year a legal holiday in the District of Columbia and the territories.

          The vital force of labor added materially to the highest standard of living and the greatest production the world has ever known and has brought us closer to the realization of our traditional ideals of economic and political democracy.  It is appropriate, therefore, that the nation pay tribute on Labor Day to the creator of so much of the nation’s strength, freedom, and leadership --- The American Worker.