Charles Ashleigh speaks to internationalist foundations of May Day and class identity in the midst of the World War in this marvelous essay of memories from his life of revolutionary proletarian vagabondage.

‘The “International” As Sung On Other May Days in Other Lands’ by Charles Ashleigh from Industrial Worker. (new) Vol. 2 No. 3. May 1, 1917.

A struggling sun, striving to smile ever so wistfully through the drizzling rain of May. The long and glistening asphalt of the Thames Embankment, with its row of methodically placed seats; to the right the great fabrics of the Cecil and Savoy hotels and the ever-rumbling murmur of the Strand, trickling down the narrow side-streets. And, to the left, the dark-grey flowing of the Thames with its variegated floating populace of lighters, tugboats, steamers, barges

But the Thames Embankment is different today. The usual close-pressed derelict occupiers of the benches are not there, or are lost in the swarm of people. For the embankment is filled,–filled as it is only once a year, upon the First of May. Against the grey sky are flaming the crimson banners: banners of plain red, banners scrawled over with the blazoned insignia of a hundred organizations. And the eternal hum of London’s traffic is drowned in the full-trumpeted blast of the Marsellaise, the International or the Red Flag, from a dozen bands. There are also wagons, wagons full of singing children. These are the pupils of the working-class Sunday schools. The wagons are draped with red and every child wears the red badge of international brotherhood; and each is singing the songs of international brotherhood. The cyclist brigades of the Scouts,–the swift, fighting vanguard of the Propaganda are there as are also the various associations of London’s teeming foreign population. Then, the unions; each with its flag and its marching hundreds.

Slowly the great procession achieves definite form. Marching four abreast, the thousands start out on their yearly pilgrimage to Hyde Park where, on a great green expanse from a score of platforms, speakers will tell the massed workers once more the old, but ever new, story of the world-wide identity of Labor which is the essential significance of May the First.

And the host can feel the electric thrill of the companion thought of millions of workers who are holding similar meetings the whole world over and their littlenesses die and they expand and become exalted with the consciousness of that wonderful, strong, new thing which is growing, the world over, out of their common suffering and their common aspirations.

An Army Reconsecrated.

There is a blast from a bugle and, at this signal, from every platform the speaker puts to the crowd the resolution of the day: an affirmation of the faith in worldwide working-class Solidarity. Thousands of hands are raised towards the sky and from thousands of throats leaps the mighty “Aye!” as the army re-consecrates itself to the Cause of the Workers

Old Meeting New on German Labor Day.

Here is a surging crowd is a small German city. The workers are in their Sunday best the creased black of the German worker which he always dons for the First of May. Every one of them is wearing a red tie. The rubber factory men have been on strike and there is an added touch of hostility and of tension in this First of May celebration.

Suddenly a speaker leaps out onto a balustrade and begins to address the crowd. Several policemen haul him down and this is the signal for the raid. The mounted police, their helmets and sabers flashing in the young May sun, force their horses in among the crowd striking right and left with their swords.

The crowd is dispersed. But that night the Wintergarten, an enormous meeting-place beneath a great glass dome, is filled as never was it filled before. And, despite the presence of the police official, who sits with his helmet before him upon the table, next to the chairman, and the presence of hundreds of gendarmes about the entrances, the great crowd rises as one man and worker pledges worker in the Cause that never dies.

Labor Day Under Southern Cross.

Down the Avenida de Mayo, I am marching: marching with swinging step and singing voice as I have before in London, and in Germany. We take up a side of the broad avenue, the spinal column of Buenos Aires. On either side are the striped and spotted awnings of the cafes where, at the little tables on the pavement, are seated the elite of Argentina’s capital, looking with half-afraid contempt at this cortege of the underdogs.

There are the lines of the Socialist Party of Argentina, the banners of the Confederation of Labor, the Workers’ Free Thinking Societies, the Italian Garibaldi Clubs with their members all in the scarlet shirts, of the Garibaldian Legion, and, here and there among the drab city workers, are, some Argentine Gauchos–or cattle ranch workers–members of the just-born Agricultural Organization, who have come in from the pampas for International Labor Day. They make a speaking dash of color, in their baggy light-colored pantaloons thrust into riding boots with enormous silver spurs; their scarlet sashes, around which are worn silver belts, are wound several times around their middle; they wear embroidered shirts and, around their necks, handkerchiefs of purple or green silk. But, dull or picturesque, everyone is at one today when Labor celebrates its unity.

And After Crossing a Continent.

After having walked nine hundred miles, crossing the uprearing mountains of the Andes and the plains and forests of Argentina and Chile, I at last arrive at my destination; the Pacific Coast. Dusty and travelworn, I and my comrade make the last lap of our eventful coast-to-coast journey and limp into the city of Valparaiso, upon the blue Pacific’s shore. We stand upon one of the main streets, looking around us and hesitating as to which direction to take. Suddenly I hear a fait tremble of distant sound; too far to be distinguishable. But it becomes plainer with its approach and it stings me to attention.

It is music: the blare of instruments and the lusty chorusing of many voices. And then my tiredness slips away from me and I am caught and uplifted as upon the wings of some spirit. It is the “International” that they are singing!

I turn to look at my friend. He also has straightened up and seems to have been made anew. For a moment we look at each other and then simultaneously it leaps from our lips: “It is the First of May!” We had forgotten the date!

Slowly the procession comes up the street. There are the flags, the dear standards of immortal red which stand for the Revolution in which our lives have their spring and their purpose. They march by, these Chilean workers, smiling and exultant as though in anticipation they were tasting the resplendent triumph of the day of working- class power.

As the first great banner goes by, flapping bloodily in the light breeze, with one impulse my friend and I swing off our old sombreros and salute. We have forgotten the troubles and toiling of our journey; we no longer feel the dull chafing of our heavy packs; for we are no longer ourselves, but a part of the great working-class Whole.

The marchers notice our gesture and call to us: “Ola, companeres! No van marchar con nosotros?” (“O comrades! Are you not going to march with us?”) And we step into the ranks and are saluted with many a comradely handclap and greeting. And, once again, we join in the singing of the “International,” the world song of the workers.

The First of May The one purely working-class festival of the year. A day unstained by any memories but the memories of the proletariat. The day which the workers of the world have dedicated to the manifesting of their solidarity.

And now the world is drowned in war and the May Day processions are sadly depleted in the countries of Europe if, in fact, they march at all Yet May Day is not lost and never can be lost until the last great class battle in which the workers shall achieve victory.

And even then, in the bright and sane new world that is to come, when the workers shall have ushered in a new society in which the means of producing wealth shall be in the hands of all and in which exploitation shall be dead–even then we shall have our May Day festival to remind us of the dark mad days of Capitalism, and to mind us of the heroic conflicts of the workers in order to end that bloody reign. In those days, when the last great fight is won; when there are no more classes but only one great people, then will May Day really be a festival.

In the meantime, fellow workers, let us make of the First of May a day of encouragement and of new resolve. Let us on that day give our thoughts to our class brothers the world over, to those who have died that the working-class fight may go on and to those who lie sorely oppressed in the prisons of the and paying the price of their rebellion.

And let us give our thoughts to the whole working-class which lies in the harsh prison, of poverty, shackled with the bonds of profit; and let us pledge ourselves that from now on every recurring May Day shall see the workers nearer their goal; just so much farther along the long road that leads from the dungeons of wage-slavery, out into the healing sunlight of industrial emancipation.

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