Americans Keep Soldiers in Mind During Holiday : Celebration: The 100th Labor Day is marked by usual parades and picnics. But participants pause to send messages to troops in the Mideast.

Americans celebrated the nation’s 100th Labor Day on Monday with parades, picnics and fireworks. But they also remembered their countrymen in the Persian Gulf.

In Chicago, the 1,500 participants in the Wellington-Oakdale Old Glory Marching Society used their annual Labor Day parade to send messages of support to U.S. troops.

Parade organizers sold small American flags to marchers and spectators before the event. The flags were collected afterward and will be sent to the troops participating in Operation Desert Shield.

“Hurry home,” said one.

“We’re thinking of you” and “God bless you,” said others.

Someone wrote the current standings of all four baseball divisions on the back of one of the 4-by-6-inch flags.

The Teamsters Union placed full-page ads in such papers as the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post and the New York Times with bold letters saying: “It’s no holiday for U.S. troops and hostages” and pledging its support.

The union said its members from coast to coast were wearing ribbons--blue for the military and yellow for the hostages--as lapel pins and armbands.

U.S. Rep. Dante B. Fascell’s 40th annual Labor Day picnic proceeded on schedule in Miami, but the Florida Democrat was not there. He was with other members of Congress on a fact-finding tour of the Middle East, missing the bash for the first time in 40 years. Picnickers ran sack races, ate 3,000 boxed chicken dinners and signed letters of support for U.S. forces in the crisis area.

In Michigan, Gov. James J. Blanchard joined 65,000 people early in the day for a five-mile walk across Mackinac Bridge, which links the state’s two peninsulas. Blanchard made the trek in one hour and 10 minutes, then flew to Detroit for more walking in the Labor Day parade and the Polish Day parade in Hamtramck.

Monday was the 100th nationwide holiday in honor of the working man, but New York declared it a state holiday in 1882.

Thousands of union members Monday walked up New York’s 5th Avenue in bright sunshine, led by Mayor David N. Dinkins and Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, who said union members were not staying ahead of inflation.

“Their wages have not grown. After inflation they are actually down,” he said. “The only reason they get ahead is that they have taken another job, their spouses have gone to work or their offspring have left home.”

It was a day of relief in Virginia Beach, Va., where a year ago police and National Guardsmen were called out to quell a riot by about 100,000 students celebrating “Greekfest,” a final bash before classes resumed.

Police reported no major problems this year as fewer than 30,000 students showed up for the holiday, renamed “Laborfest” by the city.