Labor Day has been celebrated on the first Monday in September in the United States since the 1880s. The form that the observance and celebration of Labor Day should take were outlined in the first proposal of the holiday, a street parade, to exhibit to the public "the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations" of the community, followed by a festival for the recreation and amusement of the workers and their families. This became the pattern for the celebrations of Labor Day. Speeches by prominent men and women were introduced later, as more emphasis was placed upon the economic and civic significance of the holiday. Still later, by a resolution of the American Federation of Labor convention of 1909, the Sunday preceding Labor Day was adopted as Labor Sunday and dedicated to the spiritual and educational aspects of the labor movement.
"Labor Day differs in every essential way from the other holidays of the year in any country," said Samuel Gompers, founder and longtime president of the American Federation of Labor. "All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflicts and battles of man's prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over another. Labor Day...is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race, or nation."
This is why this Holiday is an important one. This has nothing to do with war or one man. This has to do with every workingman and woman in the United States of America. The people who worked and sweated all their lives to make America as strong as it is today. The Cowboy throughout history has always worked and sweated, dropped blood on his soil. There is no one who is more deserving than the Cowboy to take this day and celebrate all of his/her own labor for his or her land and family.
Today while most of America takes a day off think about what we need. Thank you for everything you have done, from all of us in America.
We would like to take this moment and thank Edward E. Thomas, Al Thomas Sr., and Al Thomas Jr., for the hard work and dedication and determination for keeping The Thomas Ranch going after all these years.
The Thomas Ranch
