Labor Day with Theodore Roosevelt

Lessons from the Cowpunchers

On Labor Day 1900, T.R. was Governor of New York and the Republican candidate for Vice President. He spent the day at the Chicago Labor Day picnic, speaking on the labor question to a crowd made up largely of wage-earners. William Jennings Bryan, the Democratic candidate for President, also spoke at Chicago's celebration that day.

T.R. praised the good done by labor organizations and trade unions, and described New York's eight-hour law for state workers and contractors. Then he reached back to his ranch years. "The first time I ever labored alongside of and got thrown into intimate companionship with men who were mighty men of their hands was in the cattle country of the Northwest," he said.

He also warned the crowd against fine words that went nowhere: "…a ton of oratory is not worth an ounce of hard-headed, kindly common-sense."

Speak Softly, on Labor Day

A year later, on Labor Day, September 2, 1901, Vice President Roosevelt spoke at the Minnesota State Fair. The speech was about national duties and foreign policy, not labor. It is remembered for one line: "A good many of you are probably acquainted with the old proverb: 'Speak softly and carry a big stick—you will go far.'"

Four days later, on September 6, President William McKinley was shot in Buffalo.

A Square Deal at Syracuse

On September 7, 1903, T.R. gave a Labor Day speech at the New York State Fair in Syracuse. He left Oyster Bay on Sunday night, arrived in Syracuse at 9:30 the next morning, and spoke about the farmer and the wage-worker. Wire reports estimated 100,000 visitors and about 5,000 marchers in the labor parade.

The speech holds two lines that are still often quoted. One is about work itself: "Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing…" The other, near the end of the speech, was about how the country should treat every citizen: "We must treat each man on his worth and merits as a man. We must see that each is given a square deal, because he is entitled to no more and should receive no less."

He left by special train at 10:30 that night, bound back to Oyster Bay.

Labor Day in North Dakota

On Labor Day 1910, T.R. came back to North Dakota. He was on a western speaking tour, five days after his "New Nationalism" speech at Osawatomie, Kansas. In Fargo he spoke at the laying of the cornerstone of a library at Fargo College, then gave the Labor Day address to a crowd that overran Island Park.

His speech was called "Labor and Capital," and he opened it, "To-day — on Labor Day — I speak in one sense to those especially personally and vitally interested in the labor struggle…" One line sums up his argument: "Our basic problem in the twentieth century is to see that the marvelously augmented powers of production bequeathed to us by the nineteenth century be made to administer to the needs of the many rather than be exploited for the profit of the few."

The crowd sat through a heavy rainstorm to hear him. When he finished, a wire report said, a "small, poorly dressed man" pushed onto the platform, called him a liar and shouted that his expenses were "being paid by the people of the United States." T.R. took hold of the man and helped put him off the stage. The man vanished into the crowd.

Labor Day on the Campaign Trail

In 1912 T.R. ran for President as the Progressive Party candidate. Joseph W. Alsop, a Connecticut state senator, had invited him to Connecticut for Labor Day, and letters from that summer show him weighing Minnesota or Connecticut. Connecticut won. On September 2, his train made stops across Connecticut on the way to the State Fair at Charter Oak Park in Hartford, where he spoke despite the rain. From there he headed into Massachusetts and on west for a month of campaigning.

Two years later, on Labor Day, September 7, 1914, he was in New Orleans campaigning for Louisiana's Progressive candidates. An Associated Press report said he told a Labor Day picnic that labor unions were all right in principle and, led by the right men, worked toward a good end. That night he spoke at the French Opera House.

The Last Labor Day

T.R.'s last Labor Day came on September 2, 1918, four months before his death. His son Quentin had been killed in France on July 14, seven weeks earlier.

That day he went to the shipyard at Newburgh, New York, where thousands gathered for the launch of the yard's first ship, a 9,000-ton steel cargo ship named the Newburgh. He spoke to the shipyard workers there about their work for the war.

Did He Really…?

Did T.R. introduce the Square Deal on Labor Day 1903? Not quite. His Syracuse speech is a famous statement of the square deal, but he had already used the phrase in public that year, at the Grand Canyon on May 6 and at the Lincoln Monument in Springfield, Illinois, on June 4.

Was "speak softly and carry a big stick" a presidential speech? No. He said it as Vice President, at the Minnesota State Fair on Labor Day 1901. It wasn't a labor speech, and he called the line an "old proverb," not his own invention. His text also includes the ending many versions leave out: "you will go far."

Was he hurt in the Pittsfield trolley crash on Labor Day 1902? The crash happened two days after Labor Day. Labor Day was September 1, and the crash was September 3.

Was the 1910 cornerstone at the North Dakota Agricultural College? No. Accounts from 1910 place it at Fargo College.

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