beginning of the Second Republic. Largo Caballero, then Spain's Minister of Labor, had proposed that the date be made an official holiday, and within weeks of the Second Republic's proclamation the proposal was accepted. Upon acceptance, an estimated 300,000 people marched in Madrid led by the ‘Republic’ (represented by a girl dressed as such), ending where then president Niceto Alcala-Zamora celebrated ‘the end of social antagonism’. With this declaration, the complaints and requests of the workers from all over the country would go directly to the government, allowing a new ‘wave’ of public power. Franco's Primero de Mayo In the middle of the Spanish Civil War, which lasted from 1936 to 1939, Franco abolished the holiday of Primero de Mayo with a decree on April 12, 1937, which also stated that a new holiday dedicated to “Trabajo Nacional,” or National Labor, would later be declared. In March 1938 the “Fuero del Trabajo,” or Code of Labor, was published, establishing that Spain would now celebrate a “Fiesta de la Exaltacion del Trabajo,” or Labor Praising Party, to be held on July 18, his birthday. Since the Republican zone was in no condition to hold real protests mid-war, for the next several years only small, secret acts (mostly in theaters) were held to celebrate the working class's fight against Franco's army. After the war ended, the labor organizations that had kept some secret activity during the war began to reconvene and organize new protests to fight for the return of the celebrations of Primero de Mayo. A notable protest was that of 1947 in Biscay, which brought to light the problems faced by the population with high living cost and low salaries due to the war. None of the protests would bring any significant improvements to the working class any time soon, as most of them were shut down by Franco. Almost 20 years after Franco put an end to Primero de Mayo, the Catholic Church intervened. In 1955, Pope Pius XII decided to designate May 1 as Fiesta de San José Artesano, also known as San José Obrero, and Franco incorporated the holiday into the next year. Beginning in 1956, the manifestations in favor of workers’ rights were replaced by masses in churches all over the country in honor of who would become the patron saint of workers. Starting in 1957, Spain's Union Organization of Education and Rest began organizing a