The picnics, speeches, and (36)______of today’’s Labor Day were all part of the first celebration, held in New York City in 1882. Its (37)______was an Irish-American labor leader named Peter J. McGuire. A carpenter (38)______trade, McGuire had worked since the age of eleven, and in 1882 was the president of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners (UBCJ) . (39)______the City’’s Central Labor Union that summer, he proposed a holiday that would applaud (赞许) "the industrial spirit — the great vital force of every nation," On September 5 his suggestion (40)_____ fruit, as an estimated 10,000 workers, many of them (41)______their bosses’’ warnings, left work to march from Union Square up Fifth Avenue to 42nd Street. The event gained national attention, and by 1893 thirty states had made Labor Day an (42)______holiday.
The quick adoption of the (43)______may have indicated less about the state lawmakers’’ respect for working people than about a fear of risking their anger. (44)_____________________. Henry George was accurate in describing the era as one of "progress and poverty. "In a society in which factory owners rode in private Pullmans (45)_____________________. Demands for fundamental change were common throughout the labor press. With socialists demanding an end to "wage slavery" and anarchists (无政府主义) singing the praises of the virtues of dynamite (炸药) , middle-of-the-roaders like Samuel Gompers and McGuire seemed attractively mild by comparison. One can imagine practical capitalists seeing Labor Day as a bargain: (46)_____________________.