He told how Parsons had gone to his death, after being offered life if he would only separate himself from his comrades and plead for clemency. He told how ten innocent Irish miners were hanged in Pennsylvania because they had fought for the right to organize. He told of full scale battles where the workers fought armed Pinkertons, and he told much more. The workers of the various countries must organize this demonstration according to conditions prevailing in each country. So it was done, and May Day belonged to the world.
Good things belong to no one people or nation.
As the workers of country after country fitted May Day into their lives, their struggles and their hopes, they came to take for granted that the day was theirs and that too is right, for of all nations on the face of the earth, we are most surely the nation of nations, the combination of all peoples and all cultures. The May Days of the past light up the struggles of half a century like beacons. It was on May Day at the turn of the century that the working class first condemned imperialist aggrandizement. It was on May Day that workers marched in support of the infant socialist state the Soviet Union. It was on May Day that we celebrated, in all our strength, the organization of the unorganized.