Labor Day/May Day
T he observation of Labor Day on the first Monday in September is usually attributed to the Knights of

Two monuments have been erected to memorialize the Haymarket Riot. Both located in Chicago, one stands in the German Waldheim Cemetery (Forest Park, Il.), which depicts Justice preparing to draw a sword while placing a laurel wreath on the brow of a fallen worker. The second monument was originally situated in the middle of Haymarket Square in 1889.

Labor who held their first parade

on September 5, 1882. But far more important is the Haymarket Riot/Massacre of 1886.

There are several interpretations of what occurred, and monuments have been constructed to both the demonstrators and the police. A reasonable summary is that the labor organizers were peacefully demonstrating for an eight hour day, an anarchist threw a bomb in to the crowd, which killed a policeman, the police killed several demonstrators and some policemen, the powers that be arrested the labor leaders.

It was in 1887 that Oregon became the first state to establish Labor Day as a holiday, which it put on the first Saturday in June. Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York observed Labor Day on the first Monday in September that year. Then in

1889, the First (Paris) Congress of the Second Socialist International selected May First as a day for international celebration of the working man, no matter what day of the week it fell on. May F irst was chosen in commemoration of the Haymarket Massacre which occured in Chicago in 1886. In 1894, the first Monday in September was established as a federal holiday in the United States.