Newark leader. ([Newark, Ohio]) 1917-1946, 1923-08-31
Labor Day SanCtifies the
Spirit of Labor
By MATTHEW WOLL, President, In
ternational Photo -Engravers' Union;
Vice President. A. f. of L.

NlCC-I "A. L . VI IL.
LABOR DAY, which has become la
boris greatest holiday-had its birth
in 1882. In 1884, the first Monday in
September was declared Labor Day
by the American Federation of Labor.
Since that time nearly all states have
set aside this day as legal holiday
and Labor Day is now recognized as a
national holiday. 1t has been set
aside to give expression to the spirit
symbolized by all other holidays and
which represent the religious, civil
and military spirit of the nation.
Once more the workers are to OBJ
serve Labor Day-a day which has
associations entwined in the most
sacerd and most homely affairs of life
and work. Labor Day represents the
spirit that is at the forefront of civil
ization. The spirit of labor and of
the labor movement advance morality
a step farther in the progress of civil
ization, for it declares that most acts
which the present morality of trade
Largely on error, prejudice, selfshness
and other vices.
The spirit of labor is in advance of
the churches because it teaches that
men must be brothers across the
wages line, as well on each side of it,
and brothers in mills, mines, factories
and fields, as we'll as in all other re-
lations of life 1t carries the Golden
Rule into the market, and insists that
the Gospel which men profess in their
families, they shall also profess and
practice in the factories, fields and
workshops. 1t holds that the infdels
and heretics of today are those who,
as possessors of the land, lords of the
factories, monopolists Of money and
privilege, are denying the brotherhood
of their fellowmen.
Parsons, politicians, professors
many Of them-are still tied up in
the lock-stitch of self-interest with
organized abuses. They halt-they
hesitate-they decline to carry for
ward the spirit Of brotherhood into
the new affairs Of the new world.
They profess the spirit of labor in
theory; they fail to put it into prac-
tice in their pews and everyday vo-
cations of life. Many do not see that
if the spirit Of brotherhood is true in
religion and all other thoughts and
practices, it must be true in industry
as well.
Business men boast of the spirit Of
brotherhood of American citizenship
but fail to see that it cannot be lived
up to in the business of government
if it is not observed in the business of
all private ventures. The spirit of
brotherhood propounded by our busi-
ness society is founded on a brother
hood-for itself.
Professional men, who have come to
! pride themselves on maintaining a
"judicial attitude" almost invariably
show that the sort of brotherhood they
sanctify is one that will not disturb
the ease and comfort of the rich.
And so Labor lifts its head and
raises its hands to society and says:
"I want brotherhood too-a real
brotherhood in all relations of life
and work"
The spirit of labor is not self
seeking. In demanding equal rights
equal privileges, equal duties, equal
responsibilities it desires nothing
more than to put things to right. 1t
does not break with the past, but
seeks to build upon it. All the rights,
liberties and virtues that have been
gained in the glorious past by the ma
tion's heroes and martyrs as the foun-
dation stones on which the American
labor movement builds. Because many
noble martyrs in all ages have gone
to the dungeon and the fagot to show
their acceptance to the Master who
taught publicans and sinners we are
brothers, we have martyrs to die for
the faith that the workers are
brothers.
The labor movement is the rallying
Of the believers in this spirit. 1t is
not the outbreak of a turbulent or
ignorant discomfort; it is not the out
burst of an uneducated or unprincipled
mob; it is not the disloyal revolt of
destructive foreigners"
Who, after all, are the real and
destructive foreigners in our land
Who are the real and true Americans
within our midst? The real and true
Americans are all who join in the
march from slavery to freedom,
social, political, economic, industrial,
led by the Pilgrim Fathers, the
Quakers, the Catholics of Maryland
the Huguenots, the German refugees
of 1848, the Englishmen, Irishmen
Frenchmen, Germans, Italians, Hun
garians and men of other nations
who, the moment their heart beats
accepted the new truth, became bap-
tized in the brotherhood of American
ism.
On the other hand, there are those
men, who for generations back have
been fed with the choicest of fruits
of America-men who are cunning
bold, prosperous and who are con-
stantly spreading nets to catch the
weak and unwary in the courts of law
the senate chambers and in the mar
kets. 1t is those men who dig pitfalls
for Freedom, by bribing and corrupt
IL u