Note only does the DOL page not mention the stiff competition faced with the May 1st date, it doesn't even mention what is uncontroversially regarded as the main impetus for the federal labor holiday, namely, as a gesture of appeasement in the wake of the brutal suppression of the Pullman strike just 6 days before the enabling act was signed by Grover Cleveland:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pullman_Strike

In that sense, the totality of the censorship on the government's page around a simple matter of noncontroversial public history is simply astonishing. The irony is that it seems to exemplify the very ethos of left-wing totalitarianism that it's desperately trying to "protect" us from. Or as Winston Smith said it best himself,

"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth" (Book One, Chapter VII).

BTW, here's a good recap of the actual political maneuverings around the time of the federal holiday was enacted:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/20...