Happy fake International Workers’ Day (AKA “Labor Day”). Only in America. Instituted by Grover Cleveland, 22nd and 24th President of the United States.

What else is Grover Cleveland remembered for? The only US president to serve two non-consecutive terms. He won the popular vote thrice, though, thus demonstrating how inherently anti-democratic our non-direct election system (via the Electoral College) is. He paid a Polish immigrant to serve in his place and dodge the conscription during the Civil War (you could do that back then). He opposed universal suffrage, was staunchly hostile to workers’ unions (big surprise!), letting federal troops loose on striking workers. He believed Reconstruction was a failed experiment and refused to enforce the 15th amendment (a self-fulfilling position if there ever was one); an anti-imperialist who expanded the Monroe doctrine and who presided over the annexation of Hawaii. He also married a woman 27 years his junior under circumstances which leaves one to speculate if the man had any incestuous, pedophile tendencies. At the very least he was a dirty, old man. Sitting on a park bench, taaa-ta-ta…

From Wikipedia:

On June 2, 1886, Cleveland married Frances Folsom in the Blue Room at the White House. He was the second president to wed while in office, and the only president married in the White House. This marriage was unusual, since Cleveland was the executor of Oscar Folsom’s estate and had supervised Frances’ upbringing after her father’s death; nevertheless the public took no exception to the match. At twenty-one years old, Frances Folsom Cleveland was the youngest First Lady in history, and the public soon warmed to her beauty and warm personality. [My emphasis.]

One wonders, did child Frances ever get to ride on Uncle Grover’s knee before marrying him? Perhaps even sit on his lap (is that a pickle in your pocket…)? Pull his “finger”?

Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837 – June 24, 1908) was the 22nd and 24th President of the United States.

Famous quote (from a 1905 article in The Ladies Home Journal):

Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote. The relative positions to be assumed by man and woman in the working out of our civilization were assigned long ago by a higher intelligence than ours.

Anyhoo, hard working laborers of America, enjoy your day off and shop responsibly. Thanks, Grover!