In early 1886, labor unions were launching their most concerted push to make the lives of workers more humane. With most people working 10, 12 or more hours a day, six days a week, many had virtually no life outside the factory and were not living long enough to know anything different.

The early unions, such as the Knights of Labor and the International Workers of the World, convinced many workers that by walking off their jobs on May 1 they could force the owners to relent on the shorter day. If they didn't get the shorter day, then workers would strike and keep marching in the streets — and stay there if necessary.

The workers marched, but the owners weren't making any concessions. On May 3 in Chicago, the police attacked and several workers were killed. By May 4, the owners had seen enough, and the police were sent in to put a stop to it. At Haymarket Square, a bomb was thrown, killing a police officer, and the police started shooting, killing workers.

The following year, four labor leaders of the seven convicted (the first Chicago Seven trial) were hanged for allegedly inciting the riot. A few years later, in 1893, their convictions were overturned, too late. No wonder Illinois remains squeamish about the death penalty.

In 1889, the First Congress of the Second International, a coalition of labor leaders and socialists, selected May 1 as a day for international celebration of the working man. The date was proposed by the American delegation in commemoration of the Haymarket massacre.

To this day, most of the world marks labor or workers day on May 1. The United States, with Britain and Canada following, wasn't about to go along. In 1894, the first Monday in September was established as a federal Labor Day holiday in the United States.

(By the way, it took the United States until 1937 to approve the eight-hour work day.)

Yes, May Day has come a long way from Beltaine, the pagan holiday that marked the end of winter and the beginning of summer, when the lands were aglow with sunlight and flowers. It was the time for planting crops and putting the herds out to pasture.

And a bountiful harvest required more than skillful hands — thus the holiday festivities were meant to get the powers of nature and the gods behind the human endeavors.

As a spring festival, May Day meant gathering flowers for May Baskets to give to friends and loved ones. It meant felling a tree and attaching long ribbons for dancing around the Maypole.

But the innocence of our childhood does not endure. The political is always lurking.

On May 1, 1919, the troops were still returning from victory in Europe and marching through the streets of New York in F. Scott Fitzgerald's "May Day."

The soldiers came upon a soapboxer and let him finish before soundly pummeling him with fists and boots.

"`What have you got out a the war?' he was crying fiercely. `Look arounja, look arounja! Are you rich? Have you got a lot of money offered you? — no; you're lucky if you're alive and got both your legs; you're lucky if you came back an' find your wife ain't gone off with some other fella that had the money to buy himself out of the war! That's when you're lucky! Who got anything out of it except J. P. Morgan an' John D. Rockerfeller?"'

During the Cold War of the 1950s, the United States decided it didn't want to be left out as the Soviet bloc nations turned International Workers Day into a display of troops and weapons of mass destruction. In 1958, President Eisenhower proclaimed May 1 to be Loyalty Day, and it has been so since then.

In 1961, President Kennedy added Law Day to the mix.

A year ago, in President Bush's Loyalty Day proclamation, the troops were not home yet but he spoke in the past tense, as if the war in Iraq were over.

"The world has seen again the fine character of our nation through our military as they fought to protect the innocent and liberate the oppressed in Operation Iraqi Freedom," the president said.

On May Day last year, the president boarded an aircraft carrier in the Pacific and declared that major combat was over in Iraq. From that May Day to this, about 600 American soldiers have died in Iraq.

———

Cary Brunswick is managing editor of The Daily Star. He can be reached at (607) 441-7217 or cary@thedailystar.com.