The virtue of honest labor

We congratulate the 3,000 or so men and women who will be honored during the Labor Day celebrations as national model workers.

Each of them is the epitome of outstanding service, hard work and devotion. But we also want to extend our thanks to everyone who has contributed honest labor for this country.

The celebration of labor, manual work in particular, may appear a bit out of sync in this time of opportunism. Our ears are full of proud boasts of speculative gains and ways of bringing fortune out of nothing. Diligence seems to have no longer qualified as a fine virtue of the nation.