fe ef a reee mek Se eG Lecific afew Se lan of Lent ond | Te gow bane the Legany of’ : Clog , eee ite. 7 (SAE CEeenty G30 ae . (Se 16 Nev ¢% L 89 nhneg, Riwigsca AS OGM "ONL €. Jaren, Jy Gal Te eek A wakes = 05 Rise a Ag S arte he urerd. I blot aur. names cucth a Leon, Ue muvery onstl age x OL any hel dhuenw jy nee Bees pou Pafeo, pe ae We theos ore 4 pins. et Pacc PETALS, aS S my bife ancl unle ethinn, Lavy Fath os 0 ae Yn offense fpinsees Se Pera oe att bike Uae ered oh. Soe Pa : Grr Can wt ax he fotee BB othr, Ta cenglees Tina Aober omnct eheerfal y CARY drothr | Hh, the 4 Fhe gronclect, ablest—~ area Ws ) Fama ant obey, ie Ay hikdren, omy prssrons omeg, Srepen aaa ye lined. —iay omy SoA: ce Pers — clea * Pr Sas Luk f or Ph San gt tinborn, pace sae ieee? ee Frage i @ PACIFIC TRIBUNE FLASHBACK The origin of May Day EN years ago, Bill Bennett, pioneer Canadian labor * journalist who died in Vancou- ver on December 31, 1949, wrote this piece for the May Day, 1947 edition of the Pacific Tribune. a Bos m AY Day — the day of the workers — was born out out of working class struggle. The struggle of the American workers for the eight-hour day and the Chicago Martyrs! These are the historic roots from which sprang the May Day we know. The workers of the McCor- mick Harvester Company in Chicago, along with 80,000 other workers in that city, struck work on.May 1, 1886. The issue was the eight-hour day. On May 3 they held a meeting on the picket line at the McCormick plant which was attacked by the police in a most brutal manner. Six of the strikers were killed and many wounded. On the following day an in- dignation meeting was held at Haymarket Square to protest against the brutality of the police. The meeting was peace- ful until almost the close when someone threw a bomb. Un- doubtedly, a police agent! Four workers and seven policemen were killed. Ten of the strike leaders were arrested. One of them escaped from prison, one died in jail, one ratted. At the hypocritical trial; pre- sided over by that representa- tive of big business, Judge Gary, one of them was sen- tenced to_15 years in the pen- itentiary and the others were condemned to death by hang- ing. Two of them appealed for pardon and had their sen- tences commuted to life im- prisonment, from which they were released later by Gov- ernor John P. Altgeld who was convinced of their innocence. The other four, Parsons, Spies, Fischer and Engel, re- fused to plead for mercy and went to their deaths like the heroes they were. Their death on the scaffold was a victory for the working class. The last words of August Spies will be an inspiration to the working class as long as the class strug- gle continues and a treasured memory forever after: “The time will come when our silence in the grave will be more eloquent than the voices you are strangling to- day.” : And the struggle for the eight-hour day went on. In 1889, the first congress of the Second International was held in Paris, a revival of the Marxist international which had been destroyed by the re- actionaries in the labor move- ment 17 years before. At that congress a resolution originat- ing in the American Federa- tion of Labor the previous year met with enthusiastic acclaim by all delegates — a resolu- tion calling for support of the eight-hour day movement. The congress decided that on May 1 the following year, a ‘strike of- all workers: af- filiated to the .international should take place — for the eight-hour day. Thus May Day, conceived in the struggle in Chicago, was born in Paris in.1889 and was first celebrated in 1890 on an international scale, ‘the first international deed of the mili- tant working .class,’ as Fred- erick Engels, co-worker. of Karl Marx calle dit. THEY CALLED IT ROBIN HOOD'S DAY By ARTHUR CLEGG AY Day is Robin Hood’s Day, a day of struggle. Long ago May Day — Bel- tane in Scotland — was a day of struggle only against nature and of rejoicing in that strug- gle. ‘Every parish, town and vil- lage both men, women and children, old and young,” as- sembled and spent the night on some hill or in some grove. They sang, lit fires cut branches and felled a tree so that, next day, bearing branches of birch and with oxen dragging the May-pole, they could bring the summer in. The Mayers sang, and still in some places sing: “Oh we were up as soon as day To fetch the summer home-a The summer is a-coming on And winter is a-gone-a.” So Maying went on year after year, but it was gradually borne in upon the people that it needed more than bringing in the summer to “out with famine and bring in health and wealth.” If the peasants toiled and sowed, the lords took-the har-_ vest and lived in luxury. So May Day became Robin Hood’s Day, and the Morris dancers the scenes of Sherwood forest and the fall of thieving lords before the outlaw’s blows, while the people rejoiced. in Robin’s successes. Here in Tudor times and for long after, the protest of the exploited English laborer and peasant found for.one day its voice. And the May games and dances and Robin Hood mimes were one of the roots of the English theatre. Once in Tudor times London rose on May Day and sent the autocratic Cardinal Wolsey scurrying to his fortified palace. The Londoners were angry” at Wolsey’s policy of selling England to the foreigners — not in those days Americans— but German merchants and Italian bankers. The aftermath of the con- tinental wars of Henry VIII had led to economic depres- sion in London. The call to rise in protest resounded around St. Paul’s Cross. Apprentices, dockers and other watermen, serving men and their wives took con- trol of the city, demanding work. When Wolsey fled to his house, the guns of the Tower, England’s bastille, opened up on London, pounding the houses. | At the order of the govern- ment armed men were brought from all around to put the’ Londoners down. APRIL 26, 1957 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 2 Four hundred Londoners; in- cluding 11 women, were ar- rested and compelled to walk in their shirts with halters round their necks to plead par- don from the king for their crime, which was pronounced treason. Fourteen were hanged, drawn and quartered, their ex- ecutioner showing those “hang- -man’s hands” which Shakes- peare made Macbeth recall. Yet the Londoners of that “Evil May Day,” as it was called, were. building better than they knew, for. they were preparing the English Revolu- tion of the following century. Just over 300 years after Wolsey’s suppression, on May 1, 1834, Londoners gathered in Charlotte Street, off Totten- ham Court Road, heard Robert Owen proclaiming his vision of socialism. He spoke with such force and vehemence that for years after that the district of Soho had a reputation as a revolu- tionary centre. Less than 60 years later Lon- May Day, march, the first. May don workers held their first Day in Britain full of clear social protest. Frederick En- gels, standing on a wagon to watch the march, exclaimed: “The grandsons of the old Chartists' are taking their place in the battle line.” . “T held my head two inches higher when I climbed down from the old goods van,” he wrote. : : Even before that first march, elements of social protest had been gathering around the month of May — the contrast between the hope of spring and social misery was too strong to miss. One English folk song — from which war I do not know, but very topical today—said: “One morning, one morn- ing, one morning in May, I heard a poor soldier la- menting and say I heard a poor soldier la- menting and mourn I am a rebel soldier and far from my ‘home. “Pll eat when Pm hungry - and drink when I’m dry If the Yankees don’t kill me, Vil live till I die. If the Yankees don’t kill me and cause me to. : _ mourn. I am a rebel soldier and : far from my home.” The soldier describes in one of this verses the terrible car- nage of war as he knew it: “It’s grape shot and musket and, the cannons lumber loud.” Now more powerful weapons cause “many a mangled body left on the field alone,’ but the rebel had the right May Day note of the desire for peace.