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May Day became Law Day, but that didn't change history

May 1 is "Law Day."

"So what?" you say. "Sounds boring."

But a very lively history lies behind it. The forerunner of Law Day was "May Day." Sounds harmless enough but in the 1950s May Day was considered to be dangerously Left.

May Day, sometimes "International Workers Day" or "Labor Day" in Europe, was picked in the late 19th century at the peak of the industrial age, originally without official authority, as a day to celebrate the rights of labor. The rights of labor to organize, to collectively protest labor conditions or wages (grueling and low at the time) were not hailed as a good thing by the ruling classes of the Gilded Age. The abuses of laborers were also seized on by communists and socialists as ammunition for a proletarian revolution giving added impetus to reaction.

"May Day" was picked as the emblem of left-labor in recognition of the violent reaction of the authorities to the Haymarket Riot of May 4, 1886. This Chicago riot started as a protest to an earlier killing by police and hired Pinkerton security forces of two workers and injury to many others at a rally demanding an eight hour workday. At the May 4 event, not only were more killed but someone threw a homemade grenade that killed several policemen as well as more protesting workers. Eight persons, alleged to be involved with the bomb but already notorious as persons with anarchistic or communistic views, were put on trial for murder. Four were summarily hanged.

The continued fight for the rights of laborers, both violent and peaceful, proceeded through the two world wars, with light at the end of the tunnel showing during the second. Using the ensuing Cold War and fear of communism as his tools, Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin embarked on his surge for personal power. President Eisenhower couldn't stand McCarthy but wouldn't take him head on. McCarthy eventually crashed and died from alcohol abuse after a series of events beginning with the "Army-McCarthy hearings" that reduced McCarthy to a dangerous blowhard.

To move the country and his administration away from the red paint that McCarthy had spread, President Eisenhower, in 1958, declared May Day to be "Law Day," the Congress endorsing this retooling in 1961.

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While "Law Day 2015" may seem lackluster, 2015 is a special year for law as the 800th anniversary of "Magna Carta." This Great Charter was begrudgingly signed by the infamous English King John in 1215 to settle a confrontation with the English barons. By signing Magna Carta he agreed to limitations on his powers including requirements of due process (the heart of the law) and other individual rights. You will hear more about that in June, the actual anniversary of the signing.

There is a very specific tie-in between Haymarket, Magna Carta and Law Day. One of the implied guarantees that grew out of Magna Carta was the right to a fair trial. The trial of the accused Haymarket bombers was a disaster on that front.

Almost all of the men charged were selected for their beliefs rather than any connection with the bomb. The state had hard evidence against only one man. It was weak and would have suffered from withering cross-examination in our day. A hostile judge allowed the deliberate selection of a hostile jury. A limited number of peremptory challenges were allowed. Union membership or sympathy to socialism resulted in dismissal from jury selection. Separate trials were denied.

When Alaskans adopted their constitution, they placed in it many specific barriers that would have prevented the Haymarket travesty and abuses of McCarthyism. "The right of all persons to fair and just treatment in the course of legislative and executive investigations" they wrote, "shall not be infringed."

The Alaska Supreme Court in a 1973 case, Lee v State, expressed the standard that "due process" was violated "where the barriers and safeguards are so relaxed or forgotten that the proceeding is more a spectacle or trial by ordeal than a disciplined contest." There goes the Haymarket trial. Hurrah for Law Day!

John Havelock has been practicing law in Alaska since 1961.

The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, e-mail commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com

John Havelock

John Havelock is an Anchorage attorney and university scholar.

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