Eugene Debs: In a Just World, Every Day is Labor Day

The first Monday in September has by statutory enactment and general consent been set apart as Labor Day in the United Sates; and its celebration this year will be more general than ever before.

It is a day not only for rest and recreation, but for counsel and meditation. It affords an excellent opportunity to take a backward look, examine the present situation, take an inventory of resources and prepare for the greater work yet to be done before Labor Day can be celebrated by the hosts of freedom.

Labor Day must be regarded not as a privilege to be thankful for, but as a right to be enjoyed.

We never hear of Capital Day, not because Capital has no day, but because every day is Capital Day.

The struggle in which we are now engaged will end only when every day is Labor Day.

Upon every hand we see the signs of preparation.

The working class are mustering their mighty forces for political and economic conquest.

While the capitalists are capitalizing, the industrial conditions are revolutionizing, the working class are organizing, the Socialist sentiment is crystallizing and in due time the cooperative commonwealth will be materializing.

The liberation of the toilers of earth from the bonds of wage slavery is a mission worthy of the great international movement historically commissioned to render that inestimable service to humanity.

Courage is needed and intelligence, and both will be furnished in abundance by the working class itself.

Organization, based upon the mutual economic interests of the working class, is the demand of the day.