May 1, 2011
Ken Secor / Activist San Diego
May 1st is observed as International Labor Day by most of the countries of the world. The reason most people believe that May Day is a communist holiday is because corporate America doesn’t want you to even wonder why that day was chosen. It’s because 4 union members were hung in Chicago in 1886 for fighting for the 8-hour day that you take for granted today. If you read this you will know something that probably less that one American in 400 has ever heard about.
On May 1, 1886, there were massive strikes all over America. Months before, The Knights of Labor, the largest union of that day, had said that if their members didn’t get the 8-hour day 6-day week by that date they would call for a nation-wide strike. 20,000 workers actually had it so it was not an impossible dream.
On that day in Chicago 190,000 people demonstrated for the 8-hour day. There were 340,000 people demonstrating nation-wide.
The newspapers were screaming that all unions were communist conspiracies and that the whole idea of an 8-hour day was a foreign conspiracy and an attack on the sanctity of the home. They wrote that it would lead to the degeneration of family life, debauchery, lower wages, increased poverty and social degradation for the American worker. The workers were unimpressed by such warnings.
The press was constantly recommending unlawful violence against any and all strikers. Their solution was to deport the “foreign scum” and take care of the homegrown types with the liberal use of the noose and gattling guns. While newspapers were always calling for “Law and Order” they were often the first to call for citizens to break the law by encouraging them to take the law into their own hands.
