Labor Day has historically been a left-wing holiday, with its roots in the 19th and 20th Century labor movements. While Republicans kick-off the summer with Memorial Day, the celebration of workers has long been ceded to the Democrats. However, 2016 marked an epochal shift in America’s political alignments. It’s high time for conservatives to reject their white collar attachments and fully become the party of the working man.

During the late 19th century, industrialization was transforming the American economy. Workers faced dehumanizing working conditions, long hours, low wages, and virtually non-existent safety standards. In response, labor unions began forming to advocate for better conditions and improve the lives of workers. The first Labor Day Parade took place in New York City in September 1882 to celebrate workers’ rights, but it would be some time before the country fully recognized the holiday.

The pivotal moment came in 1886, in what became known as the Haymarket Affair. On May 1, thousands of workers took to the streets of Chicago to demand 8-hour work days. After days of violent clashes, a bomb went off on May 4 killing police and civilians alike.

The depth of radicalism in the early labor movement is an inconvenient fact for today’s left. Far from the narrative of peace and love that the modern left has written into the history books, dreams of revolutionary communism were alive and well in the capitalist West.

The Haymarket Affair galvanized radicals throughout the West. An international federation of socialist groups declared May 1 International Workers’ Day, in commemoration of the violent backlash in Chicago. The holiday later became synonymous with the Soviet Union’s effort to spark global revolution, and continues to be celebrated throughout the world. Yet sensing the radical direction the labor movement was heading, President Grover Cleveland offered an olive branch. In 1894, he signed legislation to make the first Monday in September a federal holiday for workers — Labor Day. (Read more from “It’s Time for Conservatives to Reclaim Labor Day” HERE)

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How’s about some ketchup on that burger? It’s extra red. What about a pinch of socialist sauerkraut on that bubbling bratwurst Didn’t you know? That’s what your Labor Day barbecue was originally meant to commemorate: socialism. Delicious, juicy, smoky socialism with a side of potato salad (German, of course) and a game of Cornhole (everyone’s a winner!).

But hey, isn’t Labor Day really just all about celebrating the value of hard work? Actually, no. At least not originally. And no, I’m not being paranoid. The history of Labor Day is fascinating. And it really is rooted in socialism.

Don’t take this capitalist’s word for it. Marxist.com, a popular pro-socialism website, proudly exclaims, “The September holiday was conceived of and celebrated by socialists and militants within the labor movement, and we should remember and reclaim this history.”

Labor Day: A Brief History

The history stretches back at least to 1882 when a couple of socialists named Matthew Maguire and Peter McGuire, both members of the Socialist Labor Party, proposed an official workers’ holiday in New York to be called Labor Day. While historians differ over which man was principally responsible, the socialist pair had success, and on Sept. 5 of that year the United States saw its first official socialist Labor Day celebrated in New York City.

As the popularity of New York’s Labor Day gained momentum in urban centers across the U.S., Labor Day was declared a national holiday in June of 1894, to be held, like New York’s own, the first Monday of every September.

Whereas the rest of the socialist world celebrates Labor Day on May 1 (May Day), America has always marched to the beat of a different drummer. And so we — a nation made both the greatest and wealthiest in all of history through free-market principles, heretofore reasonably regulated, but, alas, regulated almost to death under our current administration — give our little nod to socialism on the last day of summer (appropriate, I think, as wherever there is socialism, the fall is not far behind).

And so, as we enjoy friends, family, food and fun this extended Labor Day weekend, let’s heed the advice of Marxist.com and remember that this holiday — this “workers’ paradise” for a day — was “conceived of and celebrated by socialists and militants within the labor movement.”

Socialists Started Labor Day, But They Don’t Get It

Socialists may have started Labor Day, but it’s Christianity and capitalism that best understand, dignify and magnify human labor.

It was the influence of Christianity, remember, that led the Christian West to gradually raise its view of common labor. As tough as the serfs of the middle ages had it, they were vastly better off, and with far more rights, than the slaves under pagan Rome. (See Rodney Stark’s The Victory of Reason for a good discussion of this.) Christianity elevated the status of common laborers partly by recognizing them as a fellow creatures made in the image of God, and by insisting that the Christian peasant was a brother in Christ.

Christianity also elevated common, manual labor by insisting that the material creation was rational and good (even if wounded by the fall), not something irrational and dark to be despised and avoided, as many pagans had believed. God after all, became flesh and dwelt among us. The incarnation dignifies the material world.

Finally, Christianity, by rejecting atheistic materialism, recognizes that the labor of the office clerk, the banker and the entrepreneur is also real labor, even if you don’t see them shaping physical things with their hands. Christianity gets this right because, unshackled from the shortsightedness of materialism, it understands that the immaterial labors of the mind are as real as the creations of the brick layer or steel worker.

These insights, taken together, helped birth capitalism in the West, which has lifted literally billions out of extreme poverty, even as the false vision of socialism has impoverished, and stranded in poverty, tens and hundreds of millions.

So, yes, the socialists started Labor Day, and if they have their way, they’ll ruin labor. If we intend to stop them, we have our work cut out for us. (For more from the author of “Labor Day — Burgers, Brats and … Socialism?” please click HERE)

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