Happy Labor Day!

Talk about fulfilled campaign promises.

Have you ever thought that promising folks an extra holiday each year is the surely the most certain path to political office? Well, you're not alone.

In 1894, President Grover Cleveland followed through on a campaign pledge and enacted the first ever national Labor Day. The movement toward Labor Day had been gathering momentum for awhile, and notably gained steam in 1892 when New York City union workers took an unpaid day in support of the idea. Labor Day was placed halfway between Independence Day and Thanksgiving because--as we all know--everyone needs a break about this time!

In 1898, Samuel Gompers, head of the American Federation of Labor, said that Labor Day was "the day for which the toilers in past centuries looked forward, when their rights and their wrongs would be discussed...that the workers of our day may not only lay down their tools of labor for a holiday, but upon which they may touch shoulders in marching phalanx and feel the stronger for it."