September 1st is Labor Day in the United States, a time set aside each year to honor the part played by American workers in the building of a free and prosperous society.
From the earliest days of colonial settlement, America has held out the promise of a better life to those who are willing to work. American statesman Benjamin Franklin once said that his countrymen "do not inquire concerning a stranger, What is he? but, what can he do?"
Since 1607, tens of millions of people have immigrated legally to America. For many of these immigrants, the first years brought hardship and privation. Two-thirds of the settlers of the English colony at Jamestown died during the first year. Many Chinese laborers died in the mountains of Nevada building America's first transcontinental railroad. In the 1890s, Italian, Irish, Jewish and other immigrants employed in New York City’s garment industry often slept on cots in the shops where they worked more than ten hours at a time.
Black Americans brought to the United States against their will endured the horrors of slavery. Hispanic, Asian, and other immigrants suffered for decades from discrimination in employment.
Yet despite such difficulties, hard work and sacrifice brought rewards for American immigrants. Spurred by the incentives of a free market, some immigrants who began as laborers became successful entrepreneurs. Andrew Carnegie, the son of impoverished Scottish immigrants, worked as a messenger boy to help support his family.
He later became a leader of America's steel industry and contributed much of his vast fortune to scientific, educational, and humanitarian institutions.
Samuel Goldfish, a Jewish immigrant who changed his name to Goldwyn, became a founder of the American motion picture industry. Igor Sikorsky arrived in America from Russia in 1919, a penniless refugee. Within twenty years, he was producing trans-oceanic commercial aircraft and the world's first helicopters.
America has no monopoly on industrious and enterprising people. Such men and women can be found in every land. But America does have advantages that many nations do not -- the rule of law and a system of free enterprise. As Benjamin Franklin put it more than two hundred years ago, "With regard to encouragements. . . from government, they are really only what are derived from good laws and liberty. In short, America is the land of labor."
As President Donald Trump said in his 2020 Labor Day Proclamation: “On this Labor Day, we express our deep gratitude to workers of every generation who helped create the greatest economy in the world. . . .Together, we will continue the great American comeback.”
September 1st is Labor Day in the United States, a time set aside each year to honor the part played by American workers in the building of a free and prosperous society.