Thousands of Duluth’s working class celebrate May Day, 1921.

‘May Day Celebrated by Great Throngs of Workers’ from Truth (Duluth). Vol. 4 No. 18. May 6, 1921.  

May Day this year was celebrated by hundreds of millions of workers all over the world. Reports reach us of celebrations that so over shadow all former May Day demonstrations that the plute press is scared stiff and does not dare to mention them.

In Duluth it was a record breaking day. The parade from Workers Hall down Superior street started at 12 o’clock noon and stretched for a mile along the line of march. No such demonstration had ever been witnessed here before.

According to the press there were no people on the sidewalks, but the press omitted to state that they were in the parade. Swinging up on First Avenue East the line made the turn on 1st Street and came back to Eighth Avenue West where the masses took the trolley to Fairmont Park.

The Street Car Company had arranged to meet the emergency by calling out all the cars available and deserves credit for its willingness to aid the committee in making the celebration a success.

The host at the park was estimated at 5,000 people. Comrade Kulu acted, as chairman and a band composed, of workers furnished the music for the day. Jack Carney stirred the vast multitude by a masterly address and the comrades and Fellow Workers of all the labor groups were busy selling literature and gathering money for propaganda and defense.

In the evening the people gathered again to hear Comrade Carney at Workers Hall where every available inch of room was taken. It had been a great day for Duluth and for the people of Superior and other neighboring towns who attended this the greatest May Day celebration in this city.

Minneapolis. Bridge Square proved to be too small for the vast crowds that gathered to join the parade arranged by the May Day committee’ on Sunday, which preceded up Nicollet Avenue to Eleventh Street and thence to parade Park where ten thousand people assembled to listen to speakers and celebrate Labor’s International Holiday.

In all the history of Labor in the Mill City there has never been such outpouring as on May, this year. A band from The Machinists Union led the parade. Banners of many descriptions were carried calling for working class solidarity and for unity with the Third International, and these were cheered by the thousands that lined the streets and looked out of the windows as the marchers passed by.

A truck served as stand for the speakers from the top of which the chairmen, Bob Cramer, announced Bill Dunne; Editor of Butte Daily Bulletin, as first speaker. Dunn swayed the crowd by his fiery address and thrilled his hearers by calling them to action in the great battle now waging for the destruction of capitalism. J.O. Bentall, editor of Truth, Duluth, followed and showed the workers their rights and the way to secure them. Andrew Lafin made the closing talk. A collection amounting to several hundred dollars was taken and much literature was sold.

New York, Chicago, and all the large cities of the country had record-breaking celebrations. There has never been such interest taken in the International Working-class holiday as this year and the workers are inspired to still further attacks upon the system that must be replaced by complete working-class control.

A GOOD MAY DAY

We had a good May Day this year. The plutes behaved nicely and didn’t make any disturbance to speak of. They had the hunch that if they started anything this year they’d be sorry for it. So they kept still and let the workers have nice parades and big demonstrations. They tried to get the workers riled up in Minneapolis, but the fellows thought it would not pay to bother the cops. It happened this way: Before the parade the workers had assembled in the street and a bunch had crowded into the wob headquarters on 1st St. The room was jammed and the Fellow Workers were talking and getting ready to join the parade. When all at once a couple of cops came and ordered all inside to prepare to be searched. One cop stood at each door and the Fellow Workers one by one were searched to make sure that there were no guns in the crowd. It was one of those nasty affairs that stirs a man’s soul to its very depths. After all had been searched we asked if any gun had been found and the cops replied, “not a damn one.” The cops and the plutes will learn that there are no guns where they search for them. These smart Alecs have not brains enuf to know that the workers are not gun toters. They need no guns. They have ideas to shoot with. That beats guns all hollow. The capitalists are not worried about guns they are worried about ideas. It was not guns but ideas that put Russia into the hands of the workers. It is not guns but ideas that will take the factories and the whole world away from the incompetent plutes and place them in the power of the workers. Ideas! That’s it. May Day inspired the workers with ideas. They got the idea that it is not necessary to starve when there is a lot of food going to waste all over the country. They got the idea that it is not necessary to go without jobs when we need to produce goods to make us comfortable. They got the idea that it is foolish to let a bunglers run the country and put it to the bad when the workers might just as well run it in the interest of all the people in a scientific way that would make all the people help in the production and not let a few idle bosses have charge and make the slaves work without getting what they produce. The people got a lot of fine ideas on May Day. That is the reason the plutes are against May Day.

Truth emerged from the The Duluth Labor Leader, a weekly English language publication of the Scandinavian local of the Socialist Party in Duluth, Minnesota and began on May Day, 1917 as a Left Wing alternative to the Duluth Labor World. The paper was aligned to both the SP and the IWW leading to the paper being closed down in the first big anti-IWW raids in September, 1917. The paper was reborn as Truth, with the Duluth Scandinavian Socialists joining the Communist Labor Party of America in 1919. Shortly after the editor, Jack Carney, was arrested and convicted of espionage in 1920. Truth continued to publish with a new editor JO Bentall until 1923 as an unofficial paper of the CP.

PDF of full issue: https://www.mnhs.org/newspapers/lccn/sn89081142/1921-05-06/ed-1/seq-1