Labor Day 2010
6 September 2010
“More Than a Day Off”
Today is Labor Day, which is a day off for a lot of us in this country, but with all of my instincts for the working man in this country-or any country for that matter-I thought that I would commemorate it with something a bit different than our usual fare. Over the years I have read a ton of history, and I cannot say that I have ever felt anything but extremely fortunate to live where I do and in the times in which I live, because I have a very firm grip on who I am. To paraphrase Sun Yat-Sen, I am a working man and the son of a working man, and I owe a lot to those who came before.
Earlier this year when Mo’Nique won the Academy Award for Supporting Actress for her role in “Precious,” she said, “I would like to thank Miss Hattie McDaniel, for enduring what she had to so that I would not have to.” That is how I feel about the many strikes that were such a staple in this country from the last quarter of the Nineteenth Century through the first quarter of the Twentieth. It began about the dawn of our second century as a nation, and at a time when “Mine explosions were routine, factory mishaps normal and railroad accidents a matter of course.” (“1877: Year of Violence” by Robert V. Bruce)
A lot of brave people literally put their lives on the line so we could have the safe working conditions and eight-hour working day we now enjoy. I have used a picture from Harper’s Weekly, which covered the Homestead Strike in 1892. This strike ultimately failed, and a number of brave men lost their lives during that unrest; others were permanently scarred by the violence that had occurred. But the movement continued on, and I am fortunate that it did.
I remember a summer job I had working at a restaurant as a high school student in the early 1960s. At that time I was paid a dollar an hour and worked eleven hours a day, six days a week, no overtime. As a minor! Nowadays, that sort of thing would be, as it should have been then, illegal. But when it comes to lining up and matching up scars, I really cannot complain, because that was pretty much the worst that ever happened to me in the working world.
Others have lost fingers because employers were not required to put guards on saws or had their lungs blackened in pitiless caverns, scraping out a living as best they could. They have been black listed and put out to starve and often broken, but they somehow persevered, and the world we inherited from them is considerably brighter than anything they ever experienced.
Later this week I will return to our normal fare, but for now I thought I would post a little something to pay homage to those who went before. My wife and I mean to spend some time in the desert over the next few days, just communing with nature a bit, regrouping ourselves for the work yet to be done this year, and thinking, now and again, about those who made it possible for common working people to set down their tools at the end of an eight-hour day, not twelve.
It’s Labor Day as I post this blog, but, as a kind of homage to those brave souls of a century ago who might have wished for the extra time, I am going to run this for two days. Or maybe it’s just a way of getting more than one day off!
Joseph
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3 Responses to “Labor Day 2010”
September 6th, 2010 at 10:36 AM
Well said Joseph. Have a nice holiday.
Joe
September 6th, 2010 at 10:12 PM
Good writing,thanks. Enjoy your vacation, you desrve it.
September 8th, 2010 at 12:20 PM
Enjoy your day of not laboring! You’ve earned it.