Utalms will join tommorrow in commemoration of the Labor Day. Over the years Labor Day has come to be everyone’s day – a holiday dedicated to the laboring man and woman and widely observed in the country. lt’s summer’s last holiday. Many communities have built celebrations around it. – Here in Central Utah, the major celebration is at Payson where that city’s annual Golden Onion Days and Homecoming is in progress. Although a day dedicated to labor is traditional in many countries, the American Labor Day is unique in several respects. We have chosen September for this familiar fixture on the national calendar. Elsewhere, at least in those societies permitting such demonstrations, the preferred date is May 1 and the accent, if not always stridently Marxist, is definitely on class. May Day is the proletariat’s red-letter day, a time for toiling masses to demonstrate solidarity against, often hostility to, economically favored classes. Here, the emphasis is also on mass, but of a peculiarly American definition. This is a day for the nation en masse – assembly line worker, manager, those in the professions. The working man in the United States is virtually every man, the entire adult population conceivedeas laboring together to produce and sharing in the benefits of the national plenty. A It was not always thus. The first Labor Day, In New York, on Sept. 5, 1882, was a militant demonstration, a demand for rights and recognition. The battle was prolonged and often bitter, but American labor has long since won recognition. lts rights, underwritten by a mass of legislation unmatched in the world, are now integral to the structure of our society. We still have our clashes of economic interest, bargaining breakdowns ‘and strikes. But the dialogue, sharp though it may be at times, in the context of the American experience has taken on a peculiarly American character. As democratic capitalism has developed in this country, the sense of class, never so strong here as in the various old countries from which we sprang, has diminished. Laboring commoners can and do speak to economic kings, and in terms of living standards it is not always easy to tell them apart. There has been a parallel development in the significance of Labor Day. Not class but mass solidarity is the message now. It is an occasion not for demonstrations and militant oratory, but a day for each American – blue collar and white collar – to observe and enjoy in his own way, and through private observance to join in a public affirmation of the So They Say ”We are anxious to help the developing world acheive its objectives rapidly. But we are equally anxious to help it avoid costly mistakes through hasty actions and arbitrary conditions that would block the most effective transfer, not just of knowhow, but productive capacity And the best way to get both, in one package, is through the applied technology of a multinational corporation.” -Lee A. lacocca, president of Ford Motor Company, in a speech before the Swiss – American Chamber of Commerce. “Can you imagine how Americans would react if a cantonal (local) court in a French town decided that IBM could no longer operate in France and should close shop’!” – French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing on New York’s opposition to landings of the attnsrennap- rama.-aa