Essays from West of 98: Working Class Prosperity
It is poetic, I suppose, that Labor Day falls square in the middle of my ongoing series on creating jobs and strengthening our local rural economies.
In the hustle and bustle of life, it is easy to overlook the reasons behind many of the periodic holidays that are sprinkled the annual calendar in America. They often make for a nice day off or provide a long weekend for a getaway. Labor Day effectively marks the end of summer (your mileage may vary as to the cooperation of the weather). But that’s not *why* Labor Day was set aside as a federal holiday.
Labor Day was established as a federal holiday in 1894. This came after a series of state observances sprung up in the previous decade, as trade unions set aside days to honor the working classes. This was an era in which social reformers fought for measures that, while taken for granted today, were mere aspirations and dreams—a 40-hour work week, overtime pay, safety protocols in hazardous jobs, and the like. To some degree, Labor Day signified a demand by the working class to be treated with some manner of decency as fellow human beings. That sounds a little ridiculous to modern sensibilities, but only until you read the history of working conditions in this “Gilded Age” in America.
President Theodore Roosevelt might have been born into wealth and privilege, but he spent his entire career fighting for those working classes. In 1903, he gave a Labor Day speech at the New York State Fair, extolling the importance of the working class (the “tiller of the soil” and the “wageworker” as he described them), on whose welfare drove the welfare of the entire country: “If circumstances are such that thrift, energy, industry, and forethought enable the farmer, the tiller of the soil, on the one hand, and the wageworker, on the other, to keep themselves, their wives, and their children in reasonable comfort, then the State is well off, and we can be assured that the other classes in the community will likewise prosper. On the other hand, if there is in the long run a lack of prosperity among the two classes named, then all other prosperity is sure to be more seeming than real.”
Roosevelt rose to fame and influence during the Gilded Age, which saw massive accumulation of wealth and power at the highest end of the social spectrum, but in which the working class had to fight to keep pace. The Gilded Age was coincided with industrialization of the economy and many workers were displaced by machines and new technology. Above all, this era saw deep political acrimony between political parties and the factions within the parties. Any of that sound familiar? Many historians and studious observers have identified strong parallels between that era and the era in which we currently live.
I’ll leave it to people smarter than me to determine whether that is actually the case, but it is clear that Roosevelt’s observations from that era remain potent today. Roosevelt summed up his position by saying “the welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us,” placing importance on electing men and women who would eschew the selfishness of a single class’s interests but instead seek “to do good to each by doing good to all.”
Roosevelt spoke of America at large, but his instruction should be applied at the local level as well. Our communities depend on the prosperity of the working class. We could make our towns a a haven for billionaires and I am sure that would have some positives (some communities in the West have done just that), but unless we create real prosperity within the working classes of our towns, then, in the words of my man TR, all other prosperity is sure to be more seeming than real.
James Decker is the Mayor of Stamford, Texas and the creator of the West of 98 website and podcast. Contact James and subscribe to these essays at westof98.substack.com and subscribe to West of 98 wherever podcasts are found.