To appreciate Labor Day, one needs to know the history preceding it.
At the time the United States was founded, most people were self-employed, working as either farmers or in trades, such as:
- baker,
- butcher,
- carpenter,
- cabinetmaker,
- upholsterer,
- tailor,
- milliner - clothes merchant,
- cobbler - shoe maker,
- chandler - candle maker,
- cooper - barrel maker,
- wheelwright - wheel craftsman.
- blacksmith,
- gunsmith,
- printer, and
- apothecary.
Then, the Industrial Revolution began in the late 18th century.
Where Ireland burned peat from bogs, Britain burned coal from mines.
A problem was that mines kept filling up with water.
Scottish inventor James Watt came up with an invention to pump water out of mines - a steam pump.
European manufactured products were imported into America.
Originally, there was no Federal Income tax.
EXCISE TAXES on items like salt, tobacco, liquor;
and
TARIFF TAXES on imports from European factories.
Tariff taxes made European products more expensive, motivating consumers to buy products manufactured in America.
The tariff taxes that helped the Northern states hurt the Southern states, as the South was predominately agricultural and had few factories to protect.
This fueled animosity between the states leading up to the Civil War.
Manufacturers produced items like clothes, glass, dishes, and farm tools for a fraction of the previous costs.
Machines freed women up from tedious daily tasks, such as hand-weaving thread, hand-sewing cloth, and hand-washing clothes.
Instead of carrying water from a well, pumps and pipes brought water directly into homes.
New ways of making stronger iron and steel led to the building of bridges, skyscrapers, steamboats, and mining machinery.
Railroads began taking people safely and inexpensively across the entire nation, opening up unprecedented mobility and opportunity.
Factories had a continual source of workers from the millions of immigrants, who not only got a job, but learned the language and trade skills.
President Grover Cleveland dedicated the Statue of Liberty in 1886 to welcome immigrants.
Immigrants were known for their hard work.
This is described in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, written by German sociologist Max Weber, 1904-1905.
Weber documented how modern capitalism evolved out of the Protestant Calvinism in Northern Europe, which emphasized asceticism, self-discipline, hard work, frugality, thrift, and avoidance of all forms of indulgence for religious reasons.
In 1867, Horatio Alger began publishing a best-selling series of novels, such as:
- "Ragged Dick";
- "Strong and Steady, Or, Paddle Your Own Canoe"; and
- "Shifting for Himself: Or Gilbert Greyson's Fortune."
These were stories were about immigrants, impoverished orphans, or homeless street boys, who demonstrated the Protestant work ethic and rose from humble beginnings to have great purpose and achieve outstanding accomplishments.
In 1894, Orison Swett Marden wrote Pushing to the Front, and in 1897, founded SUCCESS magazine, publishing inspirational stories of success in life through common-sense principles and well-rounded virtues.
Immigrants were not a financial burden on the government, as there were no government welfare programs.
Some immigrants brought with them from Europe socialist and anarchists ideas and exacerbated labor tensions to further their larger goal of tearing down the capitalist system in order to set up a socialist economy.
Organizing flyers were written in the English and German languages.
Another incident was a railroad strike in 1894.
An ideal factory setting was created by George Pullman, who founded the Pullman Railroad Sleeping Car Company just outside of Chicago, Illinois.
Pullman saw that workers needed a place to live, so he built them houses in a safe little village around the factory, with rent deducted from paychecks.
Workers were paid company "scrip," similar to food stamps, which were redeemable at the company-owned grocery stores.
It was considered to be a type of utopian workers' paradise community, in the same vein of Sir Thomas More's Island of Utopia, published in 1516; and Sir Francis Bacon's New Atlantis, published in 1626.
The Pullman community worked for over a decade until something happened.
There was a nationwide economic depression in 1893 and orders for railroad sleeping cars suddenly dropped off.
To keep the company afloat, George Pullman had to make cuts in wages and lay off hundreds of employees, though, for the time being, rent and groceries stayed the same price.
Some immigrants from Europe spread Karl Marx's idea of critical theory, dividing the nation up into groups and pitting them against each other in a class-struggle.
There was rioting, pillaging, and burning of railroad cars, destroying an estimated $80 million worth of property in 27 states.
More violence erupted, and two men were killed.
After the devastating riots and shut-downs, Americans were discontented with the Democrat Administration.
"We are on the eve of very dark night, unless a return of commercial prosperity relieves popular discontent with what they believe is Democratic incompetence to make laws, and consequently with Democratic Administrations anywhere and everywhere."
Strike-organizer Eugene Debs was arrested for mail obstruction and put in prison for six months.
- the corporate income tax, 1894;
- the personal income tax, 1914; and
- the inheritance estate tax, 1916.
Eugene Debs and the rioters were defended by the attorney Clarence Darrow.
Darrow later defended evolution in the Scope's Monkey Trial.
After six months in prison, Eugene Debs was released and founded:
- the Social Democracy of America, 1897;
- the Social Democratic Party of America, 1898; and
- the Socialist Party of America, 1901.
Debs ran five time for U.S. President on Socialist Party of America ticket. As he won zero electoral votes, he opposed to the electoral process.
When World War One started, Eugene Debs urged resistance to the draft.
"Look at America—apart from everything else a neutral country. Haven’t we the beginnings of a split there, too: Eugene Debs, the 'American Rebel', declares in the socialist press that he recognizes only one type of war, civil war for the victory of socialism, and that he would sooner be shot than vote a single cent for American war expenditure " (see Deb's Appeal to Reason, "When I Shall Fight," No. 1032, September 11, 1915).
Lenin wrote "On the Appeal of the German Independents," February 1919, (Lenin Miscellany XXIV, 1933; Lenin Collected Works, 1971, Moscow.)
"I quoted the statement of the 'American Rebel,' Eugene Debs, to the effect that he would rather be shot than agree to vote for imperialist war loans, and that he would agree to fight only in a war of the workers against the capitalists."
"I am for socialism ... I seek social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class, and sole control of those who produce wealth. Communism is the goal."
In 1918, Debs was charged with ten counts of sedition and sentenced to ten years in prison.
In protest of his sentence, unionists, anarchists, socialists, and communists marched in support of Debs in a May Day parade in Cleveland, Ohio.
When Debs' attorney asked for a Presidential pardon, Woodrow Wilson wrote "denied" across the paperwork, and stated:
"While the flower of American youth was pouring out its blood to vindicate the cause of civilization, this man, Debs, stood behind the lines sniping, attacking, and denouncing them ...
This man was a traitor to his country and he will never be pardoned during my administration."
The next President, Warren G. Harding, also did not pardon Debs, and the White House released the statement:
"There is no question of his guilt ... He is ... a dangerous man calculated to mislead the unthinking and affording excuse for those with criminal intent."
After Vladimir Lenin organized the Bolshevik Revolution overthrowing Russia's government, he formed the Communist International in 1919.
This persuaded some members of Eugene Debs' Socialist Party of America to break off and form the Communist Party USA.
Chicago's statue dedicated to the police officers who were killed in the 1886 Haymarket Riot was blown up on October 6, 1969, by Bill Ayers and Eric Mann's militant group "Weatherman Underground" during their Days of Rage.
Weatherman member Bill Ayers later helped launch the political career of a young Illinois State Senator Barack Obama.
Bill Ayers stated:
"I am a radical, leftist, small 'c' communist ... Maybe I’m the last communist who is willing to admit it ... The ethics of communism still appeal tome. I don’t like Lenin as much as the early Marx."
"Myself and Alicia in particular are trained organizers ... We are trained Marxists. We are super-versed on, sort of, ideological theories."
In America, laborers worked hard for wages with which they could buy trucks, houses, cars, boats, guns, and other personal possessions.
They could also be moved upon to give of their possessions to those in need, which is called charity.
Reagan stated in 1988:
"I believe God did give mankind unlimited gifts to invent, produce and create."
Booker T. Washington founded the National Negro Business League.
He stated:
"Anyone can seek a job, but it requires a person of rare ability to create a job ... What we should do in our schools is to turn out fewer job seekers and more job creators."
In socialist countries, laborers were forced to work hard, but could own no possessions. The government took them all away.
The term "socialism" was coined by French political philosopher Henry de Saint-Simon, 1760–1825, as the opposite of the "individual."
Use of the term socialism was popularized by mid-to-late 1800s by European theorists, such as Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Leon Trotsky, and Antonio Gramsci, where power is taken away from individuals and concentrated into the hands of the state.
“Socialism is precisely the religion that must overwhelm Christianity."
James W. Wardner summarized Gramsci's views in his book Unholy Alliances, 1996:
"In the new order, socialism will triumph by first capturing the culture via infiltration of schools, universities, churches, and the media by transforming the consciousness of society.”
During Russia's Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, "socialism" became identified as a distinct transition phase between capitalism and communism.
The most opportune time to transition is in crises.
Marx and Friedrich Engels explained (Marx and Engels Collected Works, Vol. 10, p. 318):
"Conspirators by no means confine themselves to organizing the revolutionary proletariat - working class. Their business consists in ... spurring it in to artificial crises ...
For them the only condition required for the revolution is a sufficient organization of their own conspiracy. They are the alchemists of the revolution."
The term “capitalism” is the where individuals, with their own money, or capital, could invest and have a business providing goods or services - the production side.
Karl Marx wrote in The Critique of the Gotha Programme, Part IV:
"Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation."
"The goal of socialism is communism."
Karl Marx explained:
"The theory of the communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property."
"There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end:
communism proposes to enslave men by force; socialism – by vote.
It is merely the difference between murder and suicide."
Unions did help to bring about:
- the 8-hour work day,
- a 40-hour work week,
- minimum wages,
- safer working conditions, and
- more benefits for workers.
Henry Ford's Motor Company was one of the first to implement these benefits.
The sailor spread the word, leading to chain migration from Yemen and other parts of the Middle East.
ArabAmerica.com reported, September 5, 2020:
"The origin story of how the Yemeni community in Michigan is an interesting one.
Way back in the early 1900s, Henry Ford started recruiting Yemeni workers to work at Ford’s factories.
After a few years, Ford sent for more workers and the Yemeni American community began to grow.
People who gained citizenship during their time working for Ford brought family over and started lives in Michigan while remaining close to their family back in Yemen."
Unions were anti-immigrant, as cheaper labor of immigrants undercut their wages.
As unions grew in size, another situation developed, where top leadership tended to hold values different than rank-and-file union workers.
Many members supported the Second Amendment, traditional marriage, biological definitions of sex, and protection of the unborn, yet some in union leadership funneled union dues to support candidates who advocated opposing views.
After World War Two, America helped rebuild Germany and Japan with new factories.
These overseas factories, with their cheaper labor costs and newer machinery, produced items for less and took a larger part of the global market.
They hired lobbyists to push for lowering tariffs so they could bring less expensive products in, gaining a competitive advantage over American factories.
Issues that increased the cost of doing business in America included:
- Higher wages;
- Increased taxes;
- Expensive lawsuits;
- Burdensome regulations;
- Environmental restrictions;
- Crony capitalism, globalist capitalism, vulture capitalism, and big tech monopolies, where career politicians provide subsidies, contracts, and relaxed regulations for companies supporting their political agendas and reelection campaigns; but companies not supporting them are put at a disadvantage, some being faced with the choice of either going out of business or going out of the country.
As American-made products became more expensive in comparison to foreign-made products, consumers bought fewer of them, resulting in American factories needing fewer workers.
"Squeeze the sponge and the water goes out" - as manufacturing costs in America rose, manufacturers moved with their jobs to other countries.
Bringing jobs back to America is as simple as making it more profitable for factories to be located here than there.
But coalescing the political will in Congress is an uphill battle.
Globalists are happy to work with socialist and communist governments as a means secure monopolies and guarantee profits.
and
"globalist" capitalism which squelches competition by supporting one world government socialist politicians who return the favor with profitable government contracts, exception of regulations, and insider trade deals.
Additionally, socialist political strategies include intentionally raising unemployment rates so more unemployed workers will sign up for welfare benefits.
"Every fresh slump must ruin more small capitalists and increase the workers who live only by their labor.
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushschev reportedly told Ezra Taft Benson, Eisenhower's Secretary of Agriculture, in 1959:
"We won't have to fight you; We'll so weaken your economy, until you fall like overripe fruit into our hands."
Instead of addressing the need to attract manufacturers, with their jobs, back to America, many unions have focused their efforts to increase membership by recruiting from other occupations, such as government, education, medical professionals, sports, service industry, and retail.
Warning American workers of the hidden danger of "social justice" movements, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who had spent 11 years in Union of Soviet Socialist Republics labor camps, stated, June 30, 1975:
"I ... call upon America to be more careful with its trust ...
Prevent those ... who are attempting to establish even finer ... legal shades of equality -- because of their distorted outlook ... short-sightedness and ... self-interest - from falsely using the struggle for peace and for social justice to lead you down a false road ...
... 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."
"Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord."
--
American Minute is a registered trademark of William J. Federer. Permission granted to forward, reprint, or duplicate.
Bill, my friend, you’ve nailed it again. You are without a doubt the best historian in the world today. AND even better you’re not politically correct, but support God through it all.I’ll see you next month in Ozark.
God Bless
Derral
Dear Mr. Federer,
THANK YOU for this thorough, eye-opening compilation of facts which I have never known prior to reading this article. Every detail builds on the previous facts stated to provide a clear overview of what has been exactly going on, both in America and in the world, in all my seventy years of life, and long before I was born. It presents a clear understanding of what manner of people we ought to be in this day, both spiritually and as true Americans. This country is a magnificent work from GOD, our Creator. We must continue to stand strong and defend her always! Thank You again.
BLESSINGS!
B. Diehl
Wow! This is fantastic. As a Christian and patriot I align strongly with capitalism. We have a very low production rate in the U.S. b/c of the ungodly ideology of communism which leads men to operate out of fear which leads to greed. We reallly needed this teaching while I was in business school. Thank you, Mr. Federer.
Outstanding!
As ALWAYS, so informative! I am so thankful that I was tuned in to Frances & Friends that day several years ago. I had never heard you before, but since then, WOW! Aside from other appearances there, I have the Preachers, Patriots, Providence, watch(ed) you on: the 700 Club spots about USA Miracles, & BEST SO FAR, those “Understanding the Culture” videos are incredible! I’ve watched all 3 half a dozen times ea.-at least (sharing w/many). I would love to be able to show to a group (esp. young people) in a note taking, question asking, discussion set up. Sadly our VERY active (in outreach) small church was infiltrated by demonic forces (based on that “Camel Back” bunch-had never read of their methods until nearly after the fact, but they followed them to a “T” & not only us, but many local places w/active outreach, aging overworked congregations, & outright ownership of building-I could go on for 1,000+ words! Sorry!) eventually leading to the “loss” of our church AND neighborhood gathering place. Too late realized the “conspiracy”& so : 30-50 yr. Members heartbroken; outreach ceased, “agitators” since moved on; lawyers of no avail; even denominational “board” had member(s) AT LEAST unsympathetic to that one time mission turned church which even somehow saw the transferring of building/grounds ownership to THOSE individuals & THAT board. SO, for now I just share your outstanding content digitally & look SO forward to every new “American Minute” You are gifted and a BLESSING to me and my family. God bless you, Mr. Federerer!