[NON-LETTER] TRACT 81: MONTH OF MARY: MAYDAY A SONG FOR MARY Here is May come softly in, Sing unto my Lady; Robins shout with cheerful din, Sing unto my Lady. Here is May all gaily dressed, Smile unto my Lady; Purple lilac at her breast, Smile unto my Lady. Here is May sweet-scented, fair, Bow before my Lady; Apple blossoms in her hair, Bow before my Lady. (Sister M. Consilia, P.H.J.C.) May, the Month of Mary, Immaculate Queen of Heaven, is at hand, whom the Bishops of the Council of Baltimore selected 106 years ago as the patroness of our beloved America. The Enemy of God and Country have blemished the lovely month of Mary in many lands. This they have done by making the first day of May their Red Labor Day, the day when they endeavor to rally the working masses for their Revolutionary Socialist-Communist disruptive cause. The 1950 May Day, at hand, will very likely witness the toilers of Moscow, and the countries it dominates, as well as the Red working masses of France, Italy, and other countries, parading as in the past, singing the Internationale with their right clenched fists upraised defiantly to Heaven, in their Communist salute. This is the musical revolutionary call for the masses, declared therein to be "prisoners of starvation", to "rise" for the making of a Socialist world, in which they "who are naught shall be all." The rhythm of this God-defiant anthem beclouds the mentality of the Red marchers; otherwise they would realize, after 35 years of absolute control in the Land-of-Socialism-Applied, that the workers therein who are assumed to "be all," are "Like to apples on the Dead Sea's shore, All ashes to the taste." The time seems opportune for a word regarding the origin of May Day as labor's day and its perversion by the enemy of Christian civilization into an International Red Day, which is a legal holiday in Soviet lands. May Day, as labor's day, originated in our country as the day upon which to make a demand for an 8 hour day. Shorter hours of toil had long been the central demand of organized labor. It began with the carpenters of Philadelphia, who declared that "in the future a day's work amongst us shall be deemed to commence at six in the morning and terminate at six in the evening of each day." This was followed later by a 35-year struggle for a 10 hour day. Then came the demand for an 8 hour day, so that workmen could have 8 hours for work, 8 hours for sleep, and 8 hours for what they will. The philosophy of this 8 hour demand was developed in Boston by Ira Stewart in the year 1869, who was the "father of the 8 hour movement"; and George E. McGuire of the Mass. Bureau of Labor, one of the fathers of the A. F. of L. May Day, as labor's day, grew out of the Organized Trades and Labor Unions (later known as the American Federation of Labor), with the resolve that "8 hours shall constitute a legal day's work from and after May 1, 1886." This movement was given a setback on May Day 1886, the birthday of the 8 hour trade union cause, due to the Communist-Anarchist agitators, who advocated force in their publications, "The Alarm," and "Die Arbeiter Zeitung." They held that the labor movement was dying from inertia; that the workers, who were being ground down, were submitting too easily. Their advocacy of violence culminated in the Haymarket (Chicago) Riot at an 8 hour outdoor meeting, when the death and injury of the police by the explosion of a bomb, caused the arrest, conviction, and hanging of four Anarchist labor leaders,---Parsons, Speis, Engel, and Fischer. The Socialist Internationale, made May Day the treasonable worldwide Red Labor Day of the world at its Paris conference; while the American trade union leaders gradually abandoned it for the September Labor Day they caused to be enacted into a legal holiday. With May Day as Mary's Day, with the power that abides in Mary, our country's patroness, the laboring masses can ward off the devastating influence of the Socialist-Communist propaganda that threatens the welfare of the world; for her intercessory power is marvelous, as Longfellow tells us in The Golden Legend: "This is indeed the blessed Mary's land, Virgin and Mother of our dear Redeemer; All hearts are touched and softened at her name: "Alike the bandit with the bloody hand, The priest, the prince, the scholar and the peasant, The man of deeds, the visionary dreamer, Pay homage to her as one ever present; And even as children who have much offended A too indulgent father, in great shame, Penitent, yet not daring unattended To go into his presence, at the gate Speak with their sister, and confiding wait Till she goes before and intercedes; So men, repenting of their evil deeds, And yet not venturing rashly to draw near With their requests an angry father's ear, Offer to her their prayers and their confession, And she for them makes intercession. "And if our faith had given us nothing more Then the example of all Womanhood, So mild, so merciful, so strong, so good, So patient, peaceful, loyal, loving, pure, This were enough to prove it higher and truer, Than all the creeds the world had known before." Contact Us HOME------------TRADITION www.catholictradition.org/Tradition/goldstein81.htm |