Labor Day -- No Picnic in the Park

The first Labor Day was no picnic in the park. Labor Day was so declared in 1894 to appease labor, still engaged in the Pullman Railroad Strike. Workers were marching in the streets of Chicago, urging laborers still inside factories to come outside and join them in the push for an eight-hour work day. President Grover Cleveland ordered 2,000 federal troops into Chicago over the protest of Illinois Governor John Peter Altgeld. The U.S. troops were commanded by General Nelson Miles.

The newly organized American Railway Union was led by Eugene Victor Debs, who was arrested and charged under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, which had originally been passed in 1890 by Congress to control manufacturing monopolies. Go figure.