Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Labor Day is observed on the first Monday in September and this year, that’s tomorrow. Labor Day became a federal holiday in 1894, and over the years the day has come to denote different things to different people.
Labor Day was originated to pay tribute to the contributions and achievements of the American worker, and has its roots in the deadly Chicago Haymarket Riot of 1886. Police and workers faced off in clashes that turned violent when thousands of workers took to the streets in support of an eight-hour workday. Record keeping at the time was not what it is today, but news accounts tell us that more than ten people died, and more than 100 were injured including police and civilian casualties.
When I was a lad, growing up in Western Iowa and Eastern Nebraska, we were taught the meaning and significance of the day and what it meant to American workers, but it indicated something far different to us kids. Labor Day marked the beginning of the new school year, which started the next day, Tuesday. For years, I thought school started on the Tuesday after Labor Day all across the country, and the idea that school would start in August, on Wednesday, during the middle of County Fair Week was anathema to me.
For most Americans today, Labor Day is the National Holiday that book-ends Memorial Day and is the time to pull the boat out of the water, winterize the cabin up north and start thinking about getting the furnace checked for the cold times ahead. It doesn’t happen often, but every now and then, something like Goliath will come screaming down from the north and dump six feet of snow on us.
For those of us with a political bent, Labor Day is the real start of the campaign that will culminate on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. All the polls and analysis and what ifs you have read or listened to or watched, can all be scrapped. That slumbering beast, the American voter will begin to stir and pay attention to what is going on in the political world. You will see TV ads, get robo-calls, and receive political mailers in the next two months than you have in the last year.
Pay attention to them, this is the most important election of your life.
Rube Render is a former Clovis city commissioner and former chair of the Curry County Republican Party. Contact him:
