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When I was in high school in the late 1960s, May 1 was called "Law Day," and a speaker from the local American Legion came to give a speech. The drugged-out hippies smirked in the back; they knew that May 1 was about Communist revolution, man, and this was supposed to be an antidote.

Calling May 1 Loyalty Day began in 1921 as an answer to the Communist May Day, which in turn dates from Communist labor strikes on that date in 19th-century Paris—you know, when the weather gets so nice, you don't want to work. This was designed to inaugurate May 1 as a feast of the atheist religion to commemorate the hatred of God, hard work, and bathing in Catholic Europe. This date for 1,000 or so years has been a feast when statues of the Virgin Mary are honored by beautiful young girls with a procession and "May Crowning."

The American Federation of Labor, which turned away from international Communism in the late 19th century, in 1928 proposed another solution: calling May 1st "Child Health Day." The Communists were bitter in their denunciation.

Proposing a counter-example to the self-seeking, feather-bedding, and violence of the post-war labor movement on both sides of the Atlantic that continues to this day, Pope Pius XII in 1955 declared May 1 the feast of a hard-working guy who didn't belong to a union and didn't break many windows that we know of—the foster-father of God Himself, "St. Joseph the Workman."

Ora pro nobis.

Correct.

In the 60s the radical leftists ensured that Loyalty Day was removed and replaced by “Law Day.”

May 1

The U.S. Veterans of Foreign Wars designated the first day of May as Loyalty Day in 1947. The intention was to direct attention away from the Communist Party in the United States, which was using U.S. May Day rallies to promote its doctrines and sign up new members. The idea caught on, and soon Loyalty Day was being celebrated throughout the country with parades, school programs, patriotic exercises, and speeches on the importance of showing loyalty to the United States. In Delaware, for example, Loyalty Day was marked by a special ceremony at Cooch’s Bridge, where the Stars and Stripes were first displayed in battle. And in New York City, the Loyalty Day parade routinely attracted tens of thousands of participants.

Dissent over American intervention in Vietnam eventually eroded the popularity of Loyalty Day, and in 1968 only a few thousand marchers turned out for the traditional parades in Manhattan and Brooklyn, while 87,000 people participated in the Vietnam peace march in Central Park. Loyalty Day was later replaced by Law Day.