The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-05-02
support the Chinese Workers and Peasants Against Wall Street
May Day-Yesterday and Today

and May !. 1898, was selected as a
date on which a demand would be
made for the enforcement of the
eight-hour day. but the Spanish
American war furnished the excuse
to abandon that half-hearted attempt.
The next action favoring inaugm-
alton of the eight-hour day was the
endorsement by the Federation of
the Typographical Union fight that
began on January 1. 1906.
Meanwhile the Federation had Of
ficially endorsed it's own Labor Day.
purely nationalist Labor Day, to
be celebrated the first Monday in
September.
PUT the European workers have
- not abjured May First and TO
this day its approach strikes terror
into the hearts Of the capitalist class
throughout every part of the world.
In spite of the fact that Off
cial labor in the United States does
not recognize the day that was first
set aside for its own youthful chal-
lenge to the master class, there are
thousands upon thousands of work
ers who celebrate it and who meet
and take invoice of the struggles of
the past in order better to prepare
for the conflicts that are coming,
The class conscious workers here
celebrate with their comrades in
other countries and the master class
even here fears its approach. No
one ever heard of frantic prepare
lions being made by the coercive
forces of the government because of
anticipated outbreaks on the first
Monday in September. But on every
First of May in this stronghold of
capitalism the defenders of property
and order are always on the alert.
Who in the vanguard of the labor
movement today in the United States
can ever forget May Day, 1919, when
the streets of dozen cities in the
country ran red with the blood of
the working class as massed demon
strators faced the clubs, the guns
and the armoured tanks of the gun
men of capitalism? The workers of
Cleveland remember the bloody scenes
on the Public Square when the late
leader of the Workers (Communist)
Party, c. f. Ruthenberg, rallied tens
of thousands to celebrate Internal
ional Labor Day by showing their
solidarity with the victorious work
ers and peasants of Russia and the
struggling workers of Continental
Europe who were endeavoring to
throw off the yoke Of despotism that
had made a shambles of that part of
the world. In New York, Boston,
Detroit, the Pacific coast cities and
in many other places the terror ragged
against militant labor on that day.
ITO depict the history of May Day
L in Europe is to review the his
tory of the European working class
for more than a quarter of a CEN
fury. We can here only relate few
incidents that must suffice for this
brief article.
One European May Day that viii
be remembered as long as there are
inhabitants upon the earth to read
the glorious pages of labors' strug-
giles is May Day. 1916, when Karl
Liebknecht stood in Potsdam Square
in Berlin, in the uniform of a Ger
man reserve. and hurled defiance at
the imperialist war-mongers of his
own and every other country engaged
in the world slaughter. The fight
that should have been taken up by
the official socialist parties at the
very outbreak of the war was car
ried alone by Liebl,nacht, Luxem-
burg, Mehring and their small group
of close co-workers during the dark
est days of the holocaust. On that
day the man characterized by Lenin
as the foremost leader of the working
class was thrown into the Kaiser's
dungeon, from whence he was to