The Daily Worker Newspaper, September 4, 1926, Page 10

— os The Story we THERE is more than one way in which the capitalists have time and again attempted to thwart the ambitions of labor. Wherever it seemed impossible or undesirable to attack labor headlong and directly, the master class would proceed in a roundabout way, but al- Ways pursuing the same objective, which is to prevent the crystallization of class conscious- ness and class organization among the work- ers. Labor Day. was conceived as labor’s day. It promised to become, like May Day, a symbol of working class solidarity against the capital- ist class. But it didn’t. The capitalists to- gether with their henchmen in the labor move- ment have accepted Labor Day as their own day, and in doing so have killed the soul of what should have become a day of real work- ing class struggle. Labor Day was made into a perfunctory, of- ficial holiday. It has become a legal holiday by act of congress and the legislatures of thirty-two states. The banks observe it. Every- thing is closed down. Factories stop. The mines are shut. None but the wheels of neces- Sary transportation move. But not because the workers will it. Not be- cause of a show of main strength by the toil-. «is in Whoseename this hollow tribute is eb- served. No! The factories close, the working class rests on that day because the masters themselves recognize the day and rest also. However, as the American labor movement be- comes more militant and conscious, Labor Day also will become transformed into a day of struggle against capitalism. How did Labor Day come about? It was first suggested in the New York Cen- tral Labor Union in May, 1852. On the first Monday of the following September, a parade was arranged that terminated in a picnic at which speeches were made by labor orators. Two years later,’in 1884, the American Fed- eration of Labor; sitting in convention declared the first Monday of every September, Labor Day. In the’ resolution all wage earners, re- gardless of'sex, race or nationality, were urged to observe the day until it should become as ‘impressive. of Labor Day ay ats = common as July 4th. Various states were persuaded to make the day a legal holiday. So far so good. Labor Day celebrations were held in all the large cities. Some of them were The movement was young and virile. In the early eighties it was picking up steam for the battles to be fought at the end of that decade. In 1886, a huge parade was held on Labor Day in New York, which was made part of the campaign to elect Henry George mayor of New York City. Sam Gom- pers was there and aided in the campaign. Injunctions were being used on a wide scale and with impunity in a number of strikes that year in New York. “Down with Injunctions” was one of the slogans of the day. Gompers spoke from the same platform with Henry George and told the workers to violate the in- junctions. Then came the eight-hour movement. The American Federation of Labor was the initia- tor and the moving spirit of this memorable campaign. The Knights of Labor, grown to great power by this time, made a fatal error in refusing to participate officially in the move- ment for the eight hour day. But the A. F. of L. went forward with the preparations for the calling..of..a. nation-wide eight-hour strike on May 1, 1886: “May 1 was'thé logical tithe, with summer in the offing to fight the battle rather Labor Day with winter around the corner. That is how May Day came to be. And that is how May Day superceded Labor Day—why May Day is part of the flesh and blood of the move- ment. But Labor Day was continued. Yes. But that is another story. - The strike was called. The response was enthusiastic. Great gains were won for the workers. But on the 3rd of May came the Haymarket—the bloody conspiracy against again a handful of virile, revolutionary lead- ers of the workers that was in fact aimed at, the growing militancy of the workers’ move- ment in general and the eight-hour campaign in particular. The reaction to this violent re- prisal was terrific, and there followed several years of inaction. Nevertheless, at the convention of the A. F. Art and Labor VER since people have been people, how many have realized that that which is most beautiful in the world is labor? Throughout the centuries, art has knelt before the woman, the warrior, the star. Has it knelt before the laborer? Are the fearless firemen a less heroic sight than!the military ¢ncounter? From the face of the kneeling donors, one can tell what faith was. But what picture has been left to us to show the person who loved his occupa- tion, the transfigured being enraptured by his beautiful work? . Each day, the worker consummates with his hands the welfare of the world. And it is to him that art will owe its new life. The spec- tacles of love, of prayer are exhausted for the artist. Who has worshipped the dolorous beauty of the trades? After so many out-worn images, here is the renaissance: The blast furnace opens its mouth from which a tongue of flame leaps out at the fearless men. The smoke stack blows towards the sky its great laugh of sparks which the birds overleap. In the midst of the white steam, the linen weaver appears. Half-dressed, in the moist incubus of her misty loom, the moving solutions illumi- nate her livid countenance. Those who do not wish to find in Socialism the loftiest mysticism: the. mysticism of the. idea of justice, and those who oppose to it the respect for income, hold themselves triumphant in this affirmation: wey Spelt ine: It leads the world to ugliness. Through ft art-would perish. , & We must beseech them not to cling so much without clearly ascertaining to what. What is. their art? The novels where three hundred pages are necessary to learn whether the vis- countess trifles with the baron or with the marquis, or with both. The plays in which a married wdéman discovers, during four acts, reasons to her liking for sleeping out. This world is no me od capable of invention. Is it necessary to mediate so long before con- temporary art to see that for it also the revo- lution will be salubrious. Its spent goul searches impotently after pornographic diver- sions. Let us delight in the healthy destroyer who will achieve its destruction. That which deserves to die ought to die. The world must be born anew. _ The poets of the agricultural races have kissed the earth; and those of warlike peoples, ennobled murder. The writers of our indus- -on a militant hue. tr rg oN. VM EM LLL LLL LLL LLAMA LLLLLLLL of L., in 1889, the lull was’ broken and it.was decided to proceed with the eight-hour cam- -paign. One union at a time was to make the attempt until eight hours had becomie the unt enael’ work day. The Brotherhood of Car- penters and Joiners was chosen to an eight-hour strike on May 1, 1890, Samuel Gompers addressed a request to the Interna- tional Labor Congress, meeting in Paris, to ald the movement by calling mass meetings and demonstrations throughout Europe. The con- gress granted the request. The eight-hour strike was declared. More gains were made for eight hours in the building trades and great demonstrations of solidarity and support were staged throughout Europe. From athen on May Day has been kept sacred by the militant European workers. But what happened in the United States? After one more unsuccessful attempt, with the miners in the leading role in 1891, the eight- hour movement was abandoned. The miflitan- cy of the American Federation of Labor was dead. May Day was forgotten. In 1894, the United States congress enacted a law declar- ing Labor Day a holiday in the District of Columbia and the Territories. Perhaps the memory of May Day, 1888 and the fear-that [ that day would tome to be a tradition in this country as it had already become in Europe had something to do with this decision. The A. F. of L. was satisfied. This gift of the boss- es fitted with the slogan, “A fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay.” The perfunctory annual observation of an official holiday began and May Day was left to the revolutionary section of the American labor movement to keep alive. From time to time, in various localities, Labor Day parades and celebrations have taken They have occasionally been genuine workers’ demonstrations, occur- ing in the midst of struggle, and serving as a’ means to unite masses of workers for qa single purpose. But these occasions have been rare, For the most part; Labor Day parades are. routine affairs conducted in each city by the central labor body which appoints a committee to arrange a parade and usually a picnic for trial race confine themselves to erotic! amuge- ments. site pee The condition of labor produces the» perma- nent struggle between work ‘and! leisure. How many people will be allowed meditation by the shortest working day? And what art will Be | come from this meditation of the people? The erowd which deals with reality supports the im- mured artists, ink-splashers,. who spend their lives passing from a study filled with books to a salon filled with women.’ The dead mason, in erecting the story where they now write, has completed a drama as they will never write it. What grandeur there is in the consciousness of the craft? No one yet has caused this beauty to dominate us. For, those who ac+ complish it are vowed to silence. Ceasing to reproduce the gesticulations of idlers and to invent the psychol of stock- holders, art is going to redisopter the times fn which it was the sublimation of labor, labor of the soil, labor of war. The drama of the workshop is on the same plane as the Ilad. The people who today hold reality in their hands, who endure the shock of the stone that falls and the engine that bursts, are the poets it to wi! olorles ‘that sli (but: ni Pourth Lor I Fed the wo. Was me tion on And | hand'a of Lab youth | even L against real m workin B Bt tpwith se in the their't sions. feels t!