[Editor: This article, regarding May Day, was published in the Barrier Daily Truth (Broken Hill, NSW), 30 April 1949.]
May Day
It is May Day tomorrow. It is the workers’ day. It remains the workers’ day no matter how it has been or will be exploited by sections whose aim has been or is the destruction of what workers should held dear — rights and liberties.
May Day is a day of working class celebration. Its message is one that goes beyond the frontiers and crosses the seven seas — a message of good will to the workers who man the world’s industries or till its lands.
May Day may be exploited or falsified. just as the past sentiments in mankind have been, but its true purpose remains and it is that we will be expressing and celebrating tomorrow.
The fact that May Day was falsely exploited even by Hitler himself will not deter the workers of Broken Hill correctly doing justice to its objective and spirit on Sunday — the first day of May 1949.
It is a day on which workers meet as such to reflect, analyse and affirm. We can and will do that tomorrow.
May Day expresses the principle of the unity of the workers, their desire for world peace, and for the ultimate triumph of the Four Freedoms.
It expresses the will and wish of the workers to conquer the factors and forces that divide society into classes with opposing interests — that permits the few to own the means by which we all must live.
May Day visualises freedom from want through the democratic control of the means of wealth production in the hands of the people instead of the few — the minority with its privileged hold of the land and industries of the nations, and the world.
It visualises the freedom of men and women to participate in full in choice not only of those charged with the political administration of affairs, but in the industries of production. It sees a complete democracy in which human right is on the throne.
This is May Day’s spirit — its basic principle. We cannot celebrate it as we should if we do so with any conception of enslavement — of dictatorship and tyranny.
In the celebration of the day itself we can reflect upon the struggle of the past. We can renew our affirmation of devotion to the cause it symbolises.
We will be doing that in Broken Hill tomorrow. We should. It is the workers’ own day — a day of declaration of solidarity and inspiration.
Source:
Barrier Daily Truth (Broken Hill, NSW), 30 April 1949, p. 2
Editor’s notes:
Four Freedoms = Freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear (these were outlined in the 1941 State of the Union address given by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt
See: 1) “Four Freedoms”, Wikipedia
2) “Four Freedoms”, The Macleay Chronicle (Kempsey, NSW), 4 November 1942, p. 7
3) “Mr. Curtin’s speech”, Barrier Daily Truth (Broken Hill, NSW), 25 November 1942, p. 1
[Editor: Changed “workers day no matter” to “workers’ day no matter”, “is symbolises” to “it symbolises”.]
Leave a Reply