Labor Day And The American Dream

Labor Day comes Monday, but I figured addressing the theme today would make sense as most of us will be enjoying the day with family and away from the Internet. My most memorable Labor Days occurred in the '50s and '60s when I attended the big day-long picnic sponsored by the paper mill that employed my home town. Three to four thousand people attended those picnics and enjoyed carnival rides, swimming, softball, races, airplane rides, and a playground filled with wonderfully dangerous equipment that could never be built today. It all ended with a movie under the stars at the drive-in theater next door.

Although many of the kids I played with those days ended up working at the mill, I imagine a number of them went on to college and enjoyed the greater incomes and opportunities it afforded. In the long run the college graduates made the right decision. Today, the mill employs only a shadow of its former workforce, perhaps fewer than a third when compared to its post World War II heyday. The picnic is a shadow, too, and now held at a mediocre site. The union wages may still be good, but the jobs are few, and the quality of life is wanting in the region now entering its sixth decade of decline.

In my life, I've always made a point to family, friends, and colleagues that all work is honorable. Every employee, from minimum wage to executive salary, contributes to achieving organizational success. That college diploma stills determines in large part where one will fall on the earnings scale; however, the formula may be changing. In fact, opportunities to develop skills beyond the campus have never been greater. Simply put, the American Dream may be closer to more employees than ever. That should make a lot of people very happy, even in the midst of our economic downturn.
If we could just find a way to resurrect a good liberal arts curriculum in high school, I would be very pleased. Tomorrow's happy workers should at least know about the American Experience and its precedents that enabled them.

William McGurn has more to say on work and dreams in his column at The Wall Street Journal's Opinion Online.