American Minute with Bill Federer

Sep. 2- Labor Day Origins
Labor Day began over 100 years.

To appreciate it, one needs to know the history preceding it.

At the time the United States was founded, most jobs were agricultural or in trades, such as blacksmiths, cobblers, bakers, upholsterers, etc.



Then Industrial Revolution of the early 19th century harnessed water and steam power, leading to the creation of factories which could mass produce items inexpensively.



Most factories were located in the Northern States.

In early United States history, there was no Income Tax.



The Federal Government was funded primarily from: Excise Taxes on items like salt, tobacco, liquor; and Tariff Taxes on imports making them more expensive, so people would buy goods produced in American factories.

The problem was that the Tariff Taxes that helped the North, hurt the South, as the South had no factories to protect.

At one point, nearly 90% of the Federal Budget was from Tariff Taxes collected at Southern Ports, fueling the animosity which led up to the Civil War.



After the Civil War, the North passed more Tariff Taxes which allowed factories to grow enormous.



Inventions and advances in manufacturing made more and more goods available to the masses of people at cheaper and cheaper prices, resulting in the fastest increase in the standard of living and per capita income for common men and women in world history.



Textile manufacturing produced items like clothes, glass, dishes, and farm tools for a fraction of the previous costs.

New ways of making stronger steel led to the building of bridges, buildings, steamboats, and mining machinery.



Railroads now could take people safely and inexpensively across the entire nation opening up unprecedented mobility and opportunity.



Immigrants arriving in America could get jobs working in factories.



George Pullman founded a Pullman Railroad Sleeping Car Company in Illinois just outside of Chicago.

He saw that workers needed a place to live, so he built them houses in a safe little village around the factory, deducting the rent from their paychecks.



Workers were paid in company 'script' which was accepted at the company-owned grocery stores. It was thought to be a utopian workers' community and worked well for over a decade.

Then something happened.



In 1893, there was a nationwide economic depression and orders for railroad sleeping cars declined.

George Pullman had to make cuts in wages and lay off hundreds of employees, though rent and groceries stayed the same price.

 

Employees walked out, demanding lower rents and higher pay.

Growing discontent provided a seedbed for Karl Marx's theory of class-struggle and Communist redistribution of wealth.



A young worker named Eugene V. Debs led a strike of workers, and railroad workers across the nation boycotted trains carrying Pullman cars.



There was rioting, pillaging, and burning of railroad cars. It became a national issue when mail trains were interrupted.



President Grover Cleveland declared the strike a federal crime and deployed 12,000 troops to break the strike.

More violence erupted, and two men were killed.



Since it was an election year, Grover Cleveland thought it would improve his chances of getting re-elected if he appeased workers with a 'National Labor Day.'



He chose the first Monday in September, rather than May 1st, as he did not want it to be in coordination with the Communists' "International Workers Day," and Chicago's Haymarket Riot of May 1, 1886,



Railroad strike-organizer Eugene Debs went to prison and Grover Cleveland lost the election, but Labor Day remained a national holiday.

Unions successfully advocated an 8 hour day, a 40 hour work week, minimum wages, safer working conditions, and more benefits for workers.

With these unprecedented improvements came an unintended consequence -"out-sourcing."

After World War II, America helped rebuild Germany and Japan, and a global economy emerged.



With other countries having newer factories and cheaper labor, they could produce items for less, whereas in America costs increased with:

-Higher wages;
-Increased taxes;
-Expensive lawsuits;
-Burdensome regulations;
-Environmental restrictions;
and
-Crony capitalism, where government officials favored some companies which supported their reelections and political agenda, leaving other companies at a financial disadvantage.


Cost increases resulted in American-made products being comparatively more expensive in the global competition with foreign made products.

As people bought fewer American made products, American factories shut down and jobs went overseas.

Beginning in 1950, union membership among American workers shrank from 50 percent to less than 12 percent.

Bringing jobs back to America is as simple as making it more profitable for factories to be located here than there.

Instead, politically powerful unions focused efforts to increase membership by recruiting from other occupations, such as government, education, service and retail.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who spent 11 years in Communist prisons and labor camps, warned on June 30, 1975, in Washington, D.C.:

"I would like to call upon America to be more careful with its trust...

and prevent those...because of short-sightedness and still others out of self-interest, from falsely using the struggle for peace and for social justice to lead you down a false road.


Because they are trying to weaken you; they are trying to disarm your strong and magnificent country in the face of this fearful threat...

I call upon you: ordinary working men of America...do not let yourselves become weak."

News from AmericanMinute.com
Schedule interview or speaking - contact Bill Federer 314-487-4395 [email protected]

Be inspired and support great films, see GRACE UNPLUGGED at theaters Oct. 4 - View trailer


  

Get the book, Miracles in American History-32 Amazing Stories of Answered Prayer  

 

  

  

Teach English overseas! a month or a year - and be paid! - Find out MORE here 

 

 Visit the American Minute archive  

   

 

Read the Daily Reading at:  

    http://www.biblegateway.com/reading-plans/old-new-testament/2013/09/02
 

 

Receive the daily American Minute on your Facebook wall, Twitter feed, or RSS reader.   


Get a great book and help a great cause: James Nyondo's Absolute Integrity:   The Bridge to Your Destiny
http://www.nasaf.net/book/

 

Please support the American Minute.  Click here to make a donation. Thank you!

Use the Send to a Colleague
link below to tell others about the American Minute or click Join Our Mailing List to sign up.

American Minute is a registered trademark. Permission is granted to forward. reprint or duplicate with acknowledgement to vwww.AmericanMinute.com


Watch Bill Federer's TV program Faith in History

Visit our website to download an MP3 version of the American Minute suitable as a radio PSA.
Like us on FacebookFollow us on Twitter