To mark the Labor Day holiday, The Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press Editorial Board presents these excerpts from speeches and proclamations regarding labor and the dignity of work.
“We honor the contributions of labor to the strength and safety of our nation. America’s capacity for leadership in the world depends on the character of our society at home; and, in a turbulent and uncertain world, our leadership would falter unless our domestic society is robust and progressive. The labor movement in the United States has made an indispensable contribution both to the vigor of our democracy and to the advancement of the ideals of freedom around the earth.”
— President John F. Kennedy, Labor Day Statement, Sept. 2, 1963.
“[W]hen you discover what you will be in your life, set out to do it as if God Almighty called you at this particular moment in history to do it. … If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well. … For it isn’t by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are.”
— Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., address to Barratt Junior High School in Philadelphia, Oct. 26, 1967.
“On Labor Day, we are reminded that jobs are about more than a paycheck. They afford us the ability to take care of our family, friends and neighbors; to save for that well-deserved retirement; to give back to our communities and the country we would do anything for. Jobs allow us to dream, to look toward the future, and to encourage our children to do the same. Though there is much more to do until all our men and women have the rights and respect they need to thrive in their workplaces, on this occasion, let us recommit to standing together and resolving to create change.”
— President Barack Obama, Labor Day Proclamation, Sept. 2, 2016.
“On Labor Day, we celebrate the American worker: the bulwark of our national prosperity and the cornerstone of our national greatness. … In all economic decisions, we believe in our sovereign obligation to defend and protect our country’s workforce, and to seek its economic interests above that of any other country. America’s workers pay our taxes, support our values, serve in our military, raise our children, protect our Constitution, and build our communities. They deserve, in return, the unwavering fidelity of their Government.”
— President Donald Trump, Labor Day Proclamation, Aug. 31, 2018.
“It is one of the characteristics of a free and democratic modern nation that it have free and independent labor unions. In country after country in other lands, labor unions have disappeared as the iron hand of the dictator has taken command. Only in free lands have free labor unions survived. When union workers assemble with freedom and independence in a convention like this, it is proof that American democracy has remained unimpaired; it is a symbol of our determination to keep it free.”
— President Franklin Roosevelt, address to the Teamsters Union Convention in Washington, D.C., Sept. 11, 1940.
“[T]he work ethic holds that labor is good in itself; that a man or woman at work not only makes a contribution to his fellow man but becomes a better person by virtue of the act of working. That work ethic is ingrained in the American character. … That work ethic is why Americans are considered an industrious, purposeful people, and why a poor nation of 3 million people, over a course of two centuries, lifted itself into the position of the most powerful and respected leader of the free world today. … The dignity of work, the value of achievement, the morality of self-reliance — none of these is going out of style.”
— President Richard M. Nixon, Labor Day Address, Sept. 6, 1971.
