A century's labor
FOR MOST OF OUR 125-YEAR HISTORY, The Times has used Labor Day as an occasion to publish a blistering attack on labor unions. Not until the 1960s, when Publisher Otis Chandler led a shift in editorial philosophy, did The Times begin to take a more considerate, as well as more temperate, approach.
The venom and moral certitude of some of The Times' early editorials would make even the most partisan blogger blush. But these editorials are products of an age when struggles between workers and industrialists were prompting violent confrontations -- including at The Times, where in 1910 a bomb planted by union members killed 20 people.
During both world wars, the paper didn't hesitate to accuse unions of sabotaging the American war effort; in 1917, it went so far as to imply that union leaders were on the payroll of the Kaiser. If there were any question about where then-Publisher Harry Chandler stood in the contest between bosses and workers, consider the florid editorial from 1921, which out-Scrooges Ebenezer Scrooge by suggesting that Labor Day should live up to its name and be a day of grinding work.
Below are excerpts from a handful of past Labor Day editorials, concluding with a new entry. We hope you enjoy these fruits of our predecessors' labor.
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1905
Los Angeles saw fifteen carloads of The Times people booming through the streets yesterday with flags a-flutter, bands playing and mottoes speaking; and doubtless some observers wondered what it meant.
It was full of meaning and of purpose. It was a sane and wholesome celebration of Labor Day by people who work, and among its objects were these:
To bring in festive reunion a large and happy family, for the exchange of greetings and the renewing of pleasant relations on a day of cheer and merriment.
To afford an illustration of a fitting observation of Labor Day, without boozing, scandal, violence or appeals to the baser appetites, passions and prejudices.
To exalt the Star Spangled Banner above the totem, the inglorious badge of the labor-unionites, under which they debase the laws of the land
There are better things than dissipation, license and lawlessness for a holiday: they are refinement, high-mindedness and decency. There is a greater than the so-called "union label:" It is the Flag.
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1917
