Monday, September 07, 2009

Labor Day screeching, and Labor Day reading.

The first part of the transgendered professor's Labor Day screed are the words of Samuel Gompers, and as we've come to expect, Ms. Denschak makes no effort to attribute them.

Just for the fun of it, here's a section of the Wikipedia article on Gompers.

He joined Local 15 of the Cigarmakers' International Union in 1864, and was elected president of Local 144 in 1875. He was elected second vice-president of the international union in 1886, and first vice-president in 1896. He served in this capacity until his death. In 1877, the union nearly collapsed. Gompers and his friend Adolph Strasser used Local 144 as a base to rebuild the Cigarmakers' Union, introducing a high dues structure and implementing programs to pay out-of-work benefits, sick benefits, and death benefits for union members in good standing. He told the workers they needed to organize because wage reductions were almost a daily occurrence. The capitalists were only interested in profits, "and the time has come when we must assert our rights as workingmen. Every one present has the sad experience, that we are powerless in an isolated condition, while the capitalists are united; therefore it is the duty of every Cigar Maker to join the organization. ... One of the main objects of the organization," he concluded, "is the elevation of the lowest paid worker to the standard of the highest, and in time we may secure for every person in the trade an existence worthy of human beings."

Whoa -- sounds damned near Commie to me.

2 comments:

Matt Nash said...

Did anyone else picture Oliver Wendall Douglas (Eddie Albert) standing in a cornfield while Eb looked on curiously wondering where the battle hymn of the republic music was coming from.

edward parish said...

Matt the music was coming from Mr. Haney's truck.