The Real History of Labor Day

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.leftistreview.com/2011/09/04/the-real-history-of-labor-day/davidcox/

By David Glenn Cox September 4, 2011



The revolution will not be televised because it is all ready being televised. As we approach yet another Labor Day the beleaguered and beguiled will not hear an inkling of what this holiday really means or what it represents in the American landscape. Instead the mislead multitudes will be entertained with fireworks and patriotic music, backyard barbeques, beer and maybe a day off from work. Ah, yes, America loves it workers; so much, that sometimes it has to kill them.

On January 13, 1874 as unemployed workers demonstrated in New York’s Tomkins Square Park, a detachment of New York mounted police charged into the crowd wielding billy clubs, beating indiscriminately men, women and children and leaving hundreds wounded. The New York police commissioner later commented, “It was the most glorious sight I ever saw…”

June 21, 1877, ten coal mining labor activists known as Molly Maguires were hanged in Pennsylvania. The men were tried on trumped up charges in a state government run by coal money. The state was sending a message of freedom to its beloved workers: shut up, do as your told, don’t try to unionize or else! Ah yes, that blessed freedom that we hear so much about as men are being dragged away to be executed.

July 14, 1877, Baltimore railroad unions called for a national general strike to protest wage cuts. In support on July 23 railroad workers and street car workers walked off the job in Chicago. President Hayes called the event an insurrection and called out federal troops to put down the strike. On July 25th German furniture workers striking in support were confronted by police at 10:30 in the morning and clashed in a running battle which ensued for hours. In the end thirty workers were shot dead and over a hundred were wounded. None of the policeman were killed, but thirteen were wounded in this display of American freedom.

The courage of unarmed men who charge a line of well armed men for a principle is the epitome of valor. When government shoots down its citizens in the street it is a public admission that any references to liberty and freedom are nothing more than pale illusions; an admission by government that their power is exerted from gun barrels alone.

FULL story at link.

[Jackpine Radical]

1. 1886-the Bay View Incident.

Bay View Tragedy
125th Anniversary of Bay View Tragedy highlights struggles

Ceremony marks Wisconsin’s most historic labor incident

The Commemoration of the 125th Anniversary of the Bay View Tragedy takes on heightened significance this year as the State of Wisconsin is in the midst of an upheaval of activity surrounding the rights of working people and their unions. (For downloadable flyer, click here.)

The event is to be held at 4 p.m., Sunday, May 1, 2011 at the Bay View Rolling Mills State Historical marker site at S. Superior St. and E. Russell Ave., on Milwaukee’s lakefront. It commemorates the tragedy of May 5, 1886 when the State Militia shot into some 1,500 workers marching in an 8-hour-day rally and killed seven in front of the old Bay View Rolling Mills, then Milwaukee’s largest manufacturing plant.

The large demonstrations of workers and supporters in Madison and elsewhere this year seeking to protect long-won rights for collective bargaining and worker benefits will likely be referenced by the speakers and presentations at the ceremony which has become a tradition over the last 25 years.

Harvey Kaye, Rosenberg Professor of Democracy and Justice Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and the author of Thomas Paine and the Promise of America, will speak.

The program will also include a re-enactment of the May 5, 1886 event, featuring Actor Daniel Mooney and others reading from speeches of the period, accompanied by players of the Milwaukee Public Theatre dressed in period costumes, supported by puppets.

Larry Penn, folksinger and retired Teamster, will perform several songs, including his own, “Ghosts of Bay View,” and “Solidarity Forever.”

http://www.wisconsinlaborhistory.org/?page_id=45

[ThomWV]

2. And if you go down to Matewan you can almost smell the blood to this day.

[Lugnut]

3. Lattimer Massacre - September 10, 1897

http://pa.gov/portal/server.pt/community/events/4279/lattimer_massacre/478735

At nearly 3:45 in the afternoon the marchers, now numbering over four hundred, approached Lattimer with the American flag in the lead. Martin walked to the head of the column and announced that they must disperse. Not all marchers, particularly those in the back, could hear or see him. Martin attempted to tear the flag from the hands of Steve Jurich. Thwarted, he then grabbed a marcher from the second row. When others came to the marcher's aid, a scuffle broke out while part of the group continued forward. Martin drew his pistol and pulled the trigger, but the weapon did not fire.

Then someone yelled "Fire!" and "Give two or three shots!" (several eyewitnesses claimed it was the sheriff, though he would later deny this). A barrage of shots rang out. The flag bearer was the first man hit, crying to God in Slovak, "O Joj! Joj! Joj!" as he fell mortally wounded. Several marchers at the front of the column realized that the deputies were not using blanks.

Those who understood what was occurring immediately began to scatter. Some ran toward the nearby schoolhouse. Teachers Charles Guscott and Grace Coyle watched the events unfold and thought at first that the bullets were blanks, until several men running toward them fell to the ground. Other shots pierced the schoolhouse walls, sending wooden splinters through the air.

Some deputies broke rank to take better aim at fleeing marchers, shooting them in the back as they ran. Trying to escape a bullet, miner John Terri threw himself on the ground. Another miner fell on top of him, dead. Andrew Jurecheck attempted to run toward the schoolhouse and was stopped by a bullet in his back. He pleaded in vain that he wanted to see his wife before he died. Mathias Czaja was likewise hit in the back and fell to the ground. Some of the wounded cried out for help, to which one eyewitness heard a deputy respond, "We'll give you hell, not water, hunkies!"
The shooting continued for at least a minute and a half, though some eyewitnesses claimed it may have been three minutes or more. Perhaps as many as 150 shots were fired. The magazines in several of the sixteen-cartridge Winchesters were fully discharged. Blood, smoke, road dust, and cries of anguish overwhelmed the scene. Nineteen marchers lay dead. Another thirty-six were wounded. The force of the steel bullets literally tore many of the bodies to pieces. Even those who had taken bullets in their limbs were critically wounded. A few of the deputies walked among the dead and dying, kicking them, while others helped those who were wounded. When the shooting stopped Sheriff Martin uttered, "I am not well."

News of the bloodshed spread quickly. Wagons and trolleys moved the dead and dying to local hospitals and morgues. While Sheriff Martin departed for Wilkes-Barre to meet with his attorney, families of the marchers gathered in anguish and disbelief to learn the fate of the men. The deputies scattered-some to Atlantic City to seek refuge under assumed names in the Traymore Hotel.

By the next day, the governor detached the Third Brigade of the State Militia to the Hazleton area to maintain public order, as it was feared that reprisals for the killings were all but certain. However, except for one attack on the home of a mine superintendent, the immigrants remained peaceful in their grief, hoping that the American court system might bring the deputies to justice. Funerals continued for several days, sometimes drawing crowds of as many as eight thousand. Polish, Slovak, Lithuanian, and other ethnic organizations regionally and nationally expressed their grief and outrage at the massacre at Lattimer Mines.

The full story is at the link.

[DemReadingDU]

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