How many Americans can name an accomplishment of Grover Cleveland’s presidency?

Perhaps a handful know he was the first president to serve nonconsecutive terms, especially given the second to do so is in office right now.

The lack of familiarity with Cleveland’s actions shouldn’t be surprising. He viewed the power of the presidency as intended to be a primarily restrictive one. He used much of his term limiting what bills passed by the legislature actually became law.

But in June 1894, he signed a law making the first Monday in September a national holiday: Labor Day.

Ironically, Cleveland — who could attribute much of his popularity to reining in the excesses of the wealthy and powerful of the Gilded Age — lost much of whatever good will working class supporters still had that same year when he sent federal troops to Chicago to put down the Pullman strike in the midst of the most serious economic downturn the nation had yet faced.

In some ways, the sort of dichotomy Cleveland’s actions embodied in 1894 still circles around Labor Day today.

We are a nation that prides itself as being made up of hard-working, salt-of-the-Earth individuals, the sort of people on the ground that make things happen and build things with the strength of our hands and the sweat from our brows.

At the same time, we are a nation that idolizes the success of those whose wealth lifts them above the need to engage in such labor. We often treat wealth as an indication of character and ability and a lack of it as due to a moral failing.

The history of economics in America is one of a constant pull between what benefits the interests of business and the people it employs.

What is often missed in viewing either side are the real, individual people that comprise those groups. The further from great wealth or economic power people are, the more they tend to fade as individuals from the notice of others.

Case in point: How many know the name of the person who collects their garbage or delivers their mail — jobs that tend to pay a solidly middle-class wage? What about the person who hands you your morning coffee or runs the checkout at the corner store, jobs that often don’t pay even a middles-class wage?

They are all individuals a person sees regularly and, from an economic standpoint, are likely much like most Americans.

At the same time, most know the names of Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates or Warren Buffet — people it is very unlikely a person has ever met and likely have much less in common with the average American.

This Labor Day, we should take the time to take a small step to rectify that discrepancy. It doesn’t take much. This Labor Day, and on the days to follow, take time to treat those whose jobs include providing services to you like actual people. Say thank you. Ask people how they’re day is going. Tell them to have a good remainder of their day. Show some small amount of appreciation for the labor they do that benefits you.

— JP