Labor Day Message

Dear Brethren: As we open the next chapter of our Masonic life with the start of the new season of activity, now that the Summer Recess is slowly fading into memory, let’s reflect on the candid words of President and Brother Theodore Roosevelt, who aptly said “No man needs sympathy because he has to work, because he has a burden to carry. Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” How apropos that the time to roll up our sleeves and buckle down to work for the betterment of our fraternity begins with the celebration of Labor Day. The thought of celebrating Labor Day sprouted in 1882, when then secretary of the Central Labor Union of New York, planted the seed of setting aside a day to venerate the American worker in the wake of severe labor unrest and to quell a dispute between the Labor Union and the Pullman Palace Car Company. The United States Government under the leadership of then President Grover Cleveland presented this proposal to the U.S. Congress, which gave their unanimous consent giving the American workers a new Holiday called Labor Day. Calling the holiday an exhibition of “the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations, with the Sunday before the Holiday a Labor Sunday, dedicated to the spiritual and educational aspects of the labor movement.” How does this history tie in with our beloved fraternity? It may interest you to know that the Pullman Palace Car Company, and its company town of Pullman, Illinois, was founded by Brother George M. Pullman, a Brother Mason and former member of our Renovation Lodge No. 97, in Albion, New York. The Town of Pullman was comprised of some 4,000 acres of land located about 14 miles south of Chicago, where upon the Pullman Palace Car Company in 1880 built housing for approximately 6,000 company employees and their dependents. The town, entirely company-owned, provided housing, markets, a library, houses of worship, and venues for entertainment exclusively for the use of its employees. The town even had a Masonic Hall of which Palace Lodge No. 765, chartered by the Grand Lodge of Illinois, called Pullman their home. Further, it was home to the Pullman Chapter of Royal Arch Masons and the Woodlawn-Imperial R. & S.M. Council. This is the place where Labor Day was born. As we commonly hear within the hallowed halls of Freemasonry, we are routinely called from labor to refreshment, and then we return to the Quarries of Freemasonry. My brothers, with the passing of our Summer Recess, the sound of the Gavel is eminent, and I trust that each of you are now fully refreshed and both ready and willing to get back to our important work, which is a Labor of Love! It is called Brotherhood With kind brotherly love, I remain, Steven Adam Rubin Grand Master