Pullman Strike

The platform alleged that the law of 1894, passed by a Democratic Congress, was in strict pursuance of the uniform decisions of the Supreme Court for nearly a hundred years.

and then hinted that the decision annulling the law might be reversed by the same body as it may hereafter be constituted the appeal to labor voiced by mr bryan in his crown of thorns speech was reinforced in the platform as labor creates the wealth of the country ran one plank we demand the passage of such laws as may be necessary to protect it in all its rights referring to the recent pullman strike the passions of which had not yet died away the platform denounced arbitrary interference by federal authorities in local affairs as a violation of the constitution of the united states and a crime against free institutions a special objection was lodged against government by injunction as a new and highly dangerous form of oppression by which federal judges in contempt of the laws of states and rights of citizens became at once legislators judges and executioners the remedy advanced was a federal law assuring trial by jury in all cases of contempt in labor disputes Having made this declaration of faith, the Democrats, with Mr. Bryan at the head, raised their standard of battle.

The Heated Campaign The campaign which ensued outrivaled in the range of its educational activities and the bitterness of its tone all other political conflicts in American history, not excepting the fateful struggle of 1860.

Immense sums of money were contributed to the funds of both parties.

When some of those were achieved, the day evolved.

President Grover Cleveland signed legislation making Labor Day an official US federal holiday on June 28th of 1894 following nationwide labor unrest and the Pullman Strike.

However, I think many of us now simply see it as a day off from work, a day to have a picnic, and often the day before school begins.

Our holidays meant to recognize or honor a person or event sometimes become a day off from work or school, a respite from our mundane lives.

By 1894, 30 U.S. states were already officially celebrating Labor Day.

In that year, shortly after the Pullman Strike, the Congress passed a bill recognizing the first Monday of September as Labor Day and making it an official federal holiday.

President Grover Cleveland signed the bill into law on June 28th.

The federal law only made it a holiday for federal workers.

A famous anthropologist working in Guatemala or southern Mexico among Maya people.

telling them about these ancient cities and one of these indigenous people looked at her and said whatever happened to these maya and she realized the profundity with which you know we lose connection to our past she said you're you're their descendants you're them And even something as modern as Matewan or Haymarket or the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, the Pullman strike, the massacre in Flint.

I mean, as recent as 50 years ago, hard for me to believe that that's within my living memory, this was a wall-to-wall union state.

And it was a bastion of democracy and Democrats.

A little bit before I was born, but it is my birthday.

And it was right in the Pullman labor strike.

On the south side of Chicago.

Okay.