VIII THE NEW FOURTH

OUR BARBAROUS FOURTH

BY MRS. ISAAC L. RICE

(From The Century Magazine, June, 1908.)

In his first book, Marcus Aurelius gratefully acknowledges his obligation to Sextus of Chæronea for having taught him to “express approbation without noisy display.” Alas! in all the centuries which have elapsed since the time of this emperor-philosopher, we have not yet learned to appreciate the wisdom of his counsel; and every holiday, in our country, at least, is made the occasion of a strident outburst of hoodlumism. Hallowe’en, Election Day, Christmas, New Year’s, Inauguration Day, and Fourth of July, each witnesses our thoroughfares thronged with shouting and disorderly crowds, provided with every noisy device from the tin trumpet to the dangerous pistol, while shrieks of whistles shrill maddeningly above the street clamor and the booming of bells. Accidents occur, the sick are made worse by these frenzied demonstrations, and the young fail to appreciate the significance of the day which is being so unbeautifully celebrated.

Of all these “noise-fests,” the most shocking is the Fourth of July, and its grim statistics probably furnish a sadder commentary on human folly than that afforded by any other celebration in the world.

I often wonder what would be the emotions of a stranger, quite ignorant of our institutions, if he arrived in our country—“God’s Country,” as we affectionately call it—just before midsummer, and glanced over our great newspapers. After reading some items, such as the following, would he be apt to await a great and glorious anniversary, or the advent of a day of strife and terror?

The horrible Fourth will soon be here.... In all the big cities the Fourth of July is now looked forward to with apprehension and looked back upon with a shudder, and even with horror.

Or,

The Board of Health has established supply stations of tetanus antitoxin throughout the city. The National Volunteer Emergency Service has established field dressing stations in the thickly populated sections. The hospitals also expect their usual busy day.

And then he would read head-lines like these:

THE NATIONAL BATTLE-FIELD CARNAGE BEGINS ON HOLIDAY EVE BLOODIEST FOURTH YET DEATHS AND INJURIES IN FOURTH OF JULY’S WAKE

After our stranger had grasped the fact that this was not the record of a battle or other public calamity, but merely some details regarding the manner in which a great nation commemorates the most solemn event in its history, I doubt whether he would have an exalted opinion of a people who could desecrate so noble a memory by so barbarous an observance.

The fitting celebration of Independence Day is a question on which patriotic Americans are separated into two widely divergent parties, one claiming that it ought to be observed as noisily as possible, the other believing that our national birthday is too glorious an occasion to be marred by din and disorder. Of course we know that even among those who favor a boisterous observance there are many who cannot tolerate it themselves, and escape to the country in order to avoid the tortures of the “awful Fourth”; just as we know that a large proportion of the noise-makers, including the small boy and the big boy, too, is heedless, if not ignorant, of all that our holiday stands for, and thinks of it only as a time when clamor may reign unrestrained.[17]

The figures which indicate the price that we pay for each of our yearly celebrations are so appalling that one would suppose a knowledge of them would be the most powerful deterrent to our annual massacre. This, unfortunately, is not the case. For the past five years, the Journal of the American Medical Association has endeavored to collect statistics setting forth what the celebration of the Fourth costs in life and human usefulness; and although these are admittedly incomplete,—compiled, as they are, almost entirely from newspaper reports instead of from records of hospitals, dispensaries, and physicians,—they form the gravest possible arraignment of the recklessness which is willing to pay such a price for a “jolly day.” They show that during the celebration of five national birthdays, from 1903 to 1907 inclusive, eleven hundred and fifty-three persons were killed, and twenty-one thousand five hundred and twenty were injured! Of the injured, eighty-eight suffered total, and three hundred and eighty-nine partial, blindness; three hundred and eight persons lost arms, legs, or hands, and one thousand and sixty-seven lost one or more fingers. But these figures, startling as they are, convey only a faint idea of the suffering, both physical and mental, which went to swell the total cost of these five holidays; in this we must also include the weeks and often months of anguish of the injured, the suspense of entire families while the fate of some loved one hung in the balance, the horror of a future of sightless years, the pinching poverty now the lot of many because of the death or maiming of the breadwinner.

But putting aside the question of fatalities, of invalidism, of blindness, of penury, the effect on the sick of a long continuance of explosive noises, varying in intensity for days, or even weeks, and deafening for twenty-four hours at least, merits serious consideration. That the return of our “glorious Fourth” is looked forward to with dread by our hospital-sick, as well as by those who are concerned in their care, was made pathetically clear to me last summer when I interviewed the superintendents of almost all our municipal institutions. One and all deplored the needless suffering inflicted on their patients by our barbarous manner of celebration, and begged me to bring the matter to the attention of the Police Department.[18]

In this connection, a letter from Dr. Thomas Darlington, Commissioner of Health, is of interest:

I agree entirely with you in regard to the serious injury inflicted upon patients in the hospitals occasioned by the common practice of exploding firecrackers and torpedoes in the immediate vicinity.

Professor William Hanna Thomson took the same stand when he stated:

I rejoice to hear that your Society for the Suppression of Unnecessary Noise proposes to have measures taken to lessen the explosions of firecrackers and firearms in the neighborhood of our city hospitals on the Fourth of July. Such noises are particularly injurious, both from their nature and their being of an unusual kind, to patients with any high fever, such as typhoid, and it will be a great service to humanity to have them suppressed, if not altogether, as most sane people will acknowledge, yet at least near institutions harboring a variety of patients.

One feature of our celebration which has not yet been touched upon is the cost. Last year, New York City boasted of an outlay of four million dollars, while the country as a whole burned up the huge sum of twenty million dollars in fireworks. Finally, we must add the vast sum lost by conflagrations before we are in a position to realize the whole price that we pay for our day of jollity.

It is interesting to remark how strongly the press is beginning to voice its protest against our “noise-fest”—a protest now largely seconded by public opinion, although a few years ago it would have been regarded as woefully unpatriotic. Here are a few excerpts gathered last July from widely scattered papers, which are unanimous in decrying our present-day observance:

The most ridiculous and senseless celebration of any great national event.—New York Commercial.

What the connection is between explosives and patriotism, no one has ever undertaken to describe.—Utica Press.

The people must be educated to appreciate the folly of dynamite as a factor in patriotism.—Chicago Daily Tribune.

Time to consider how our annual worship of the God of Noise is to be abolished. This blatant and death-dealing Divinity long ago usurped the shrine occupied by Patriotism. Every year we carry and lay on his bloody altars human sacrifices, like the tribute of maidens to the Minotaur—only they are mostly boys. And so, year after year, the “Glorious Fourth” becomes more and more a dread festival of blood and fire and noise, of death and mayhem.—Minneapolis Journal.

The traditional gunpowder and dynamite orgies of Independence Day are wrong. Firearms and explosives have no place in any sane scheme of city life.—Cleveland Plain Dealer.

The day on which human folly too frequently runs amuck.... That the achievement of our national independence, brought about through the necessary spilling of great quantities of blood, should be commemorated by the very general loss of life and limb is as unnecessary as it is deplorable.—Union (Manchester, N. H.).

Americans are realizing that noises, maimed and wounded children, and big conflagrations should not be the sequence of the Nation’s birthday.—Toledo Blade.

What ought to be the most enjoyable day in the calendar, is made a day of general carnage and a day toward which adults look forward with dread and whose passing they look back upon with a sense of mighty relief.—Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minn.).

It is the money burned up in useless and dangerous explosives that is wasted, serving no better purpose than to leave the city with a headache the morning after.—Republic (St. Louis).

The din ... is hideously vulgar and utterly uncivilized ... discreditable to those who make it and to the civil authorities who permit it.—Evening Wisconsin (Milwaukee).

I fain would haul down the red flag of our modern Fourth of July and, in its place, run up the flag of peace, quietude, rest, contentment, and personal safety.—Life (New York).

The total results of our last “jolly celebration” of Independence Day were 164 killed and 4,249 injured, many of them being maimed for life! Is this method of celebration really worth while?—Journal Amer. Med. Assn. (Chicago).

How can any satisfaction be taken in the perversion of a holiday to purposes of disorder and destruction, and how can any pride be felt in methods of observance which inevitably condemn hundreds—if not thousands—to be shot, burned, maimed, and otherwise disfigured and tortured in propitiation of the great god of senseless uproar?—New York Tribune.

As for those who are in favor of continuing our present mode of celebration, I can find but one who has written openly in its defense, and even then there is a suspicion that the article is ironical.

It is better to shock the sensitive nerves of a few grown people than to have the boys and girls grow up molly-coddles, with the fear of gunpowder in their hearts and no appreciation of a boisterous holiday, rich in patriotic appeal, and full of the “rough house” spirit of healthy Americanism.

This, if seriously meant, reaches the height of absurdity; for if there is one thing of which little children should have a wholesome dread, it is gunpowder, and I know of no other country in which such a weapon is put into the hands of babes.

It is customary with us to excuse ourselves for Fourth of July accidents by putting all the blame on the small boy. This, however, seems scarcely fair. The blame for much of the annual massacre rests not upon the careless small boy, but upon the careless big parent who places in his hand the instrument of destruction. And an even greater share of the blame is due to public apathy, which not only allows the annual suspension of sane and safe ordinances regulating the use of firearms and explosives, but also permits the disorderly few to injure the health and disturb the repose of the orderly many.

As proving that noise is the great desideratum in fireworks, a few extracts from various catalogues will prove interesting. Here, for instance, is a piece the figures of which, according to the thrilling description, move about “whistling and screaming in fantastic, wild, unearthly furore, terminating with a fusillading report,” and another which bursts “with terrific reports that can be heard for miles,” while a third explodes “with reports equal to six- and twelve-pound cannons,” and a fourth like “an imitation rapid-fire Gatling-gun.” An appreciative testimonial lauds a “Salute of LYDDITE SHELLS, nothing giving such a tremendous report having ever before been heard in our celebration,” while other goods are emphatically praised as being “loudest and best,” or “big in noise.” One particular piece is noticeable because it consists of a string of fifty thousand firecrackers. As corroborative of all this, which tends to show that noise is what is desired above all else in fireworks, comes this published interview with a dealer, which is certainly illuminating:

The exploding cane is always a winner so long as it is not suppressed by the police. Blank cartridges come up at the head of the list. Nothing gives a celebrator so much pleasure as flourishing a pistol and shooting several times in rapid succession. There is just one thing that determines the efficiency of any contrivance designed for celebrating the Fourth, and that is, the volume of sound it makes. For that reason the cannon firecrackers are popular, and always will remain so.

This, then, is what excites the patriotic fervor of the partisans of a strident Fourth, though it does seem as if their enthusiasm would be somewhat lessened in placing side by side with the above this extract from the Journal of the American Medical Association, which considers the causative factors of the aftermath of last Independence Day:

Of the 102 deaths aside from tetanus, gunshot wounds caused twenty, giant crackers caused thirteen, and thirteen deaths were due to explosions of powder, torpedoes and dynamite. Ten deaths were due to falls or runaways caused by firecrackers.... The limit of tolerance is reached, however, when we know that thirty-one persons were burned to death.... The principal cause of the most mutilating wounds is by far the giant cracker.... This year 1,489 injuries, including thirteen deaths and eight cases of lockjaw, were due to the giant cracker.

It is a reflection scarcely calculated to gratify our national pride that the United States is the only civilized country which observes the greatest of its fête-days in such an uncivilized fashion. Our sister republics, France, Switzerland, and Brazil, rejoice full as heartily as we over their national birthdays, but they celebrate them in a sane, safe, wholesome, and happy way, and not in our barbarous manner. As regards the observance of the French fête, July 14th, Marcel Prévost, the eminent writer, has kindly described it for me in the following letter:

The fête of July 14th is, above all, in France, a day of popular rejoicing; politics do not enter into it. It affords an opportunity of illuminating the town-halls and public buildings, and of indulging in the pleasure of dancing in the open air. In a word, it is a huge kermess. It has always taken place in order and tranquillity. Accidents are rare, even in Paris. And since the review at Longchamps has humanely been arranged to take place at nine in the morning, instead of at noon, the troops do not run the risk of sunstroke, which sometimes saddened the early fêtes of July 14th.

The following touchingly beautiful account of the observance of Switzerland’s birthday was sent me by Dr. Eugène Richard, Member of the Council of State:

Year by year the people of Switzerland keep the anniversary of 1291, which was in real truth the foundation of the Confederation. Does that treaty—founded by the inhabitants of the Forest Cantons, borrowing from justice her most equitable principles (even down to that of arbitration between states), and guaranteed by the rigid energy of its signers—receive a commemoration worthy of its splendid simplicity?

No clamorous ceremony, to drown the voices of the past, instead of blending with them. We give proof of our remembrance of the First of August by a few brief manifestations during the closing hours of the day.

This national solemnity, surprising as it may seem, finds no place in the list of legal holidays. No one interrupts his daily tasks, for such was the way with the men of 1291, who, returning to their homes, took up again the care of their herds.

As night descends, the bells on all the churches are set to pealing in a sublime concert of gratitude, rising with penetrating poetry through the serenity and softness of a summer night. Shortly afterward bonfires are kindled along the heights. Here and there will be a modest illumination or rare display of fireworks. Occasionally an orator reminds the people of the significance of their rejoicing and holds up for imitation the character of our ancestors.

Whoever witnesses this spectacle realizes the strength and the sincerity of a patriotism that, without clamor or ostentation, draws fresh life by reverting to its original sources. Switzerland lives in the heart of her citizens. A noisy demonstration would take from us the benefit of a thoughtful mood.

In order to produce an impression both profound and salutary, national celebrations must needs have a pervading tranquillity, which enhances their dignity, and leads mankind to earnest thought.

According to a very charming letter from his Excellency, Señor Joaquin Nabuco, Brazilian Ambassador, it appears that although his countrymen do not observe their festivals with that calm, patriotic fervor which characterizes the Swiss, and although they rejoice in noise as well as in color, there is nothing to show that their holidays are marred by that disorder and by those horrible lists of casualties and accidents which disgrace the celebration of our great anniversary.

The following delightful description of Germany’s greatest festival, the Emperor’s birthday, has been given me by Professor Hugo Münsterberg of Harvard University:

When I look backward to my boyhood days in Germany and ask myself from what sources my young patriotism was steadily supplied, I cannot value highly enough the influence of the patriotic celebrations in my school and my native town. The dearest memory belongs to the Emperor’s birthday. I know quite well that the present Emperor was born in January; but when I hear the word “Emperor’s birthday,” it still always awakes in me first the date of the 22d of March—the old Emperor’s day.

Long before, the school planned everything for the grand day; patriotic and religious music, songs and patriotic declamations by the younger pupils, short dramatic plays with motives from German history, given by the older boys, and always an enthusiastic oration by one of the teachers. In Sunday clothes we gathered in the school; everything was decorated with flowers and garlands and flags, and the whole school continuously, year by year, was lifted up in a common pride and enthusiasm. Two or three of the happiest morning hours were devoted to the celebration, and the jubilant hurrah for the beloved Emperor at the end of the historic oration was the only sound of the day.

Then we streamed out into the decorated streets, enjoyed the picturesque parades and went to the concert at the market-place, where patriotic marches kindled our youthful emotions. The afternoon belonged to parties at home, where school friends gathered and enjoyed their games with a historic flavor and the chocolate with a patriotic abundance of cakes. Quiet, mellow days they were, and any loud noise would have appeared to us boys as a desecration of the festivity; and yet the loyalty which I stored up in those March days of my boyhood still supplies me amply when I have, year for year on the 27th of January, to make my Emperor’s birthday orations to the German-Americans.

An interesting account of the manner in which Japan celebrates her fêtes was kindly written for me by his Excellency Viscount Aoki, recently Japanese Ambassador to the United States:

In Japan we have three great national holidays. They are November 3d, the present Emperor’s birthday; New Year’s Day; and February 11th, the Day of the Accession of the Emperor Jimmu, the first ruler of the Empire of Japan.

An illustration of the Emperor’s birthday celebration in Japan will be sufficient to give a general idea as to how our national holidays are celebrated at home, for there is little difference in the way of its celebration between the above-named three holidays, except in minor details:

On the Emperor’s birthday all offices, schools, banks, and large business houses are closed. The national flag is hoisted on all public buildings, schools, and on most of the private houses all over the country. High dignitaries, both civil and military, who are present in the capital, proceed to the Palace of Tokio to present before the throne their congratulations for the occasion, while those in the country and abroad send their congratulatory messages by mail through the Minister for the Imperial Household. In every school all over the country the day is observed in a form appropriate to the occasion. One hundred and one salutes are fired from every fort in the empire. The imperial review of the army is in regular order of the celebration of the day, when hundreds of thousands of the enthusiastic public gather around the drill-ground and all along the imperial route to cheer their august and beloved sovereign and to witness the glorious military parade of the day, while all of his Majesty’s ships fire twenty-one salutes (otherwise known as the national salute) and appear in full dress. The Emperor entertains in the palace at breakfast all the foreign representatives and high dignitaries of the empire.

And now let us listen to what some of our prominent Americans, whose patriotism none can assail, have to say about our present-day observance. First “Mark Twain,” in whose heart of hearts the small boy is enshrined, and who certainly would not needlessly curtail even one of his little pleasures. Does he approve of our day of “burning” patriotism? No; for he has written to me:

I am with you sincerely in your crusade against the bedlam frenzies of the Fourth of July.

And William Dean Howells:

I am glad that you have added to your noble and beneficent ambition to suppress all unnecessary noises the wish especially to deal with the barbarous and obstreperous celebration of the Fourth of July. I am sure that Confucius did not invent gunpowder, and that it was not Chinese wisdom which gave us firecrackers. Until we cease to glorify our national birthday like a nation of lawless boys we shall have no right to claim that we have come of age, and the civilized world must regard us as savages until we stop behaving like them.

And one of our poets:

It is good news that you are turning your attention to the subject of the irrational manner in which Americans celebrate their independence. I am sure you will not merely advocate the suppression of meaningless noise, and that you will indicate such fêtes, ceremonies, pageants, and celebrations in general as are rational and instructive; also, that you will hint at a broader and more inspiring use of the day than either arousing old and debasing international enmities or the display of indecent self-glorification.

As to the suppression of Fourth of July noise, with its dangers to nerve, limb, and life, the whole sensible population will wish you a continuance of that success which has followed your efforts on a narrower scale in the metropolis. I am reminded that in the sweet and peaceful valley from which I write the national holiday is looked forward to with apprehension, on account of the dreadful, sleep-scattering noises of the night and dawn before. On the Fourth, why should we not have music instead of noise, art, instead of gunpowder? Every community in the United States will have occasion to bless your name and memory if you can do something substantial toward making more quiet and more ennobling the anniversary of the day that gave the Republic birth.

Here, too, is a letter from Dr. Weir Mitchell:

If anything can be done to lessen the noise of the Fourth of July celebrations, it will also be efficient in lessening the amount of injuries inflicted by the desire of man and boy to make meaningless noises. Not only does it leave the Fourth of July as an annually recurrent unpleasant memory, but there is the same absurd tendency to extend the nuisance of noises into other days. Thus at present in this city, and I presume elsewhere, the first of the year is ushered in by a vast chorus of idiotic noises produced by steam-whistles, firecrackers, and horns, accompanied by a solemn bell-ringing, such as in old times called those who watched for the coming of the New Year to prayer.

That our Commissioner of Health fully recognizes the necessity of bringing about a saner mode of celebration is shown by the following letter:

Your plan to include, as part of the activities of the Society for the Suppression of Unnecessary Noise, the question of a more sensible celebration of the Fourth of July, meets with my most hearty approval. The long list of killed and wounded, which comes as the result of what should be a day of patriotic inspiration, is certainly appalling, and indicative of how far we have strayed from its true spirit.

Your efforts to induce the people of this country to celebrate its most joyous anniversary in a manner fitting and appropriate, provide an object which should enlist the sympathy and coöperation of all who have the welfare of their country at heart.

And finally ... I offer this letter from the Hon. Henry L. West, Commissioner of the District of Columbia, which shows that even officialdom is willing to risk the charge of lack of patriotism, if by so doing our boys and girls may be saved from the horrors of a day of catastrophes:

I am thoroughly in sympathy with any movement which will result in decreasing the habit of carelessly using gunpowder on the Fourth of July and which will also result in a more quiet celebration of the day.

In Washington the authorities have already taken a step in the right direction in forbidding the explosion of the so-called giant firecrackers, nor is it allowable to place torpedoes on the street railway tracks.

I believe that the Fourth of July can be celebrated with as much patriotism and more sanity if the wanton use of gunpowder on that day is condemned.

And now, before taking up the question of what might be suggested as a more reverent and appropriate mode of honoring our day of days, let us look back a hundred years or so, and see how our first national birthdays were kept. Here it is encouraging to learn that nothing resembling in the least our wild orgy of noise was dreamed of. Indeed, had such a suggestion been breathed to the sons and daughters of our Revolutionary heroes, they would probably have felt that the plan savored more of China, the land of noise and the home of the firecracker, than of their own country, and have been profoundly shocked at the mere idea that such an anniversary could receive so murderous a recognition. A glance over the time-yellowed pages of the Evening Post, printed more than a century ago, or those of the New York Packet, which was old when the Post was young, shows how differently the Fourth was observed by those who had seen burst into full flower that glorious patriotism which had given it birth. The proclamations, announcements, poems, and advertisements which appeared in those July days of long ago are touching in their patriotic, though grandiloquent, fervor. Here, for instance, is a bit from an announcement of the Tammany Association which appeared in the “Season of Fruit, Year of the Discovery, 310” (July 1):

Brothers. This Day, like the Sun which illuminates it, sheds a bright and diffusive luster, and welcomes all to partake of its radiance. Once it witnessed the blood-stained field, the plundered town, the ravaged coast, the sinking warrior, the defenseless town, the despondency of our Guardian Genius. But the Great Spirit watched over the western clime, and now its approach is hailed with the incense of Peace; and the veteran rejoices in his scars, the hoary chief and his patriot sons assemble with congratulations where once the noise of battle was heard, and the Eagle towers aloft majestic and unawed.

In these days the celebration began with unfurling the flag, a salute of thirteen guns and ringing of church-bells, followed by a procession and exchange of courtesies between the Governor and the President. Then came the march to church, where odes, addresses, anthems, and orations were in order with, of course, the reading of the Declaration of Independence. Next, luncheon, with more salutes and bell-ringing and then, evening having come, performances in theaters and gardens and the meeting of various patriotic societies. Everything connected with the performances was patriotically reminiscent. In the gardens, transparencies and fireworks portrayed temples of immortality, obelisks of heroes, and figures of Justice, Fidelity, Fame, and Piety, all radiantly intermingled with shining pictures of Washington and of the Arms of the United States, with its brilliant stars, while at the theater, patriotic plays were given, such as “Bunker Hill” or the “Death of Warren and the Glory of Columbia” or the “Retrospect of the American Revolution.” This all refers to New York, but it is probable that virtually the same observance obtained in other large cities.

Let us now consider what might be substituted for our present-day mad and dangerous celebration, which serves only to keep in remembrance one feature of our great struggle, the cannonading and musketry-discharges which shook the country during the arduous days of its birth. I sincerely believe that our national birthday can be observed with heartfelt patriotic rejoicing, and yet without the slightest danger to life or limb, without any nerve-racking noise or display of hoodlumism, and without any of the extravagant outlay which has characterized our former celebrations. Flags can float, national music be played and sung in places now given over solely to the deafening din of cannon firecrackers, the Declaration of Independence be read at all of our public buildings, where inspiring addresses may also be made, and street-displays, such as processions with floats, beautiful as well as instructive, furnish delightful object-lessons of the greatest events in our history. Then, at night, we may have illuminations, both private and municipal, and displays of fireworks in open places, where the exhibitions can be conducted by experienced men, thus avoiding all danger of the shocking accidents which now sadden our celebration. Let us, on this day, forget the noise of battle and the passions of international strife, and remember only the wonderful spirit of sacrifice, and patriotism, and brotherhood which animated our Revolutionary heroes. Let us, who know what the day means, endeavor to make it both memorable and illuminating to those who do not, by opening the hearts of the children, of the poor and ignorant, of the distressed and disheartened alien within our gates, to at least a partial significance of what we honor in our glorious festival. Let us enter personally into the work, giving tender endeavor as well as means to the task of making the occasion the happiest of all the year to the ignorant and the wretched. Let us give them a day of liberty in the country or in the parks, where they will see our beautiful flag floating everywhere about them, and where their untrained ears will become accustomed to the ringing rhythm of our national melodies. Let us give them mementos of the Fourth, such as flags and pictures of our heroes and of those whom we love as well as honor. There let them listen to the story of the birth of our Republic, and have it told simply and, if necessary, in their own tongues, so that all can feel how great were those who made the country free, and how wonderful is the boon of liberty now extended to the oppressed of other countries.

A SAFE AND SANE FOURTH OF JULY

BY HENRY LITCHFIELD WEST

(From The Forum, August, 1909.)

A little more than a year ago the Century Magazine contained a vigorous and convincing article by Mrs. Isaac L. Rice, entitled “Our Barbarous Fourth.” It was a protest against a condition of affairs in the United States which had long attracted attention but which no one, up to that time, had criticised in such emphatic terms. “The grim statistics of the Fourth of July,” said the article, “probably furnish a sadder commentary of human folly than that afforded by any other celebration in the world.”...

It is true that a few thoughtful people had in more or less nonchalant manner observed the terrible toll of death and injury which the evil celebration of the day demanded. Quite a number of newspapers—notably the Chicago Tribune—were questioning the wisdom of a method which in one day had resulted in the death of 164 people, and the injury of nearly 5,000. “How can any satisfaction,” asked the New York Tribune, “be taken in the perversion of a holiday to purposes of disorder and destruction, and how can any pride be felt in methods of observance which inevitably condemn hundreds—if not thousands—to be shot, burned, maimed, and otherwise disfigured and tortured in propitiation of the great god of senseless uproar?” The St. Paul Pioneer Press deplored the fact that a day which ought to be the most enjoyable in the calendar had become a day of general carnage; while the New York Commercial characterized the popular celebration as ridiculous and senseless.

Notwithstanding these occasional utterances of truth, which indicated a growing sentiment, the fact is, that at the time of the appearance of “Our Barbarous Fourth” there was only one city in the country wherein any curb had been placed upon the insensate and reckless custom of observing the Fourth of July with dynamite and gunpowder. The cemeteries and the hospitals were claiming their victims and yet no one in authority seemed courageous enough to call a halt for fear of being charged with lack of patriotism. I believe, however, that the article in question appeared at the psychological moment. It was so straightforward in its presentation of the facts, so earnest in its appeal and so logical in its assertion that there were numerous sensible ways of celebrating our national holiday, that it made a profound impression everywhere. At any rate, the fact is, that before that article appeared only one city in the country had prohibited the sale and explosion of fireworks, while within a short period after it had been printed the authorities in several cities took radical action along the lines therein suggested. It is no exaggeration to say that within the next ten years the old barbarous Fourth of July will have entirely disappeared, and it is also within the bounds of accurate statement to add that the one greatest individual factor in accomplishing the much-needed reform is the author of the Century article.

All this is by way of preface to the fact that the experiment of a safe and sane Fourth of July was tried this year in the National Capital; and in the belief that its details will prove of general interest, they are herewith recorded. If, as now seems to be the case, we are on the verge of a revolution in the customs which have been in vogue for half a century, the methods by which the change is to be accomplished are not without their value and significance.

The celebration of the national holiday in the capital a year ago had been marked by so many accidents and fires that some protest against the indiscriminate use of fireworks was uttered, and the Commissioners who govern the city declared themselves in published interviews in favor of a safer and saner observance of the day. No definite action was taken, however, until last November, when the question became acute because hundreds of dealers in fireworks in the city were naturally anxious to know whether they would be permitted to handle explosives. Inquiry of other cities brought forth the fact that Cleveland had already enacted an ordinance forbidding the sale and discharge of fireworks, and a copy of this ordinance was secured. In Washington, as ought to be generally known, there is no common council or board of aldermen, but all regulations governing the municipality are promulgated by the three Commissioners under authority delegated to them by Congress. The question whether Washington should undertake the experiment of a non-explosive Fourth rested, therefore, with these three men, and it did not take them long to reach their conclusion. One of them had, more than a year previously, formally expressed his sympathy with the object sought to be attained by the opponents of the barbarous Fourth, and his colleagues were, happily, of the same opinion. In November, therefore, eight months before the arrival of the holiday, the following regulation was enacted:

“No firecracker, squib, or other fireworks of any kind shall be sold and delivered, discharged or set off within the city of Washington, or the fire limits of the District of Columbia, or in the more densely populated portions of said District; provided, however, on occasions of public celebration and exhibition fireworks may be discharged or set off on special permits issued by the Commissioners defining the time, place, storage and such other conditions to be observed in reference thereto as they may deem necessary to the public safety. No gun, air gun, rifle, air rifle, pistol, revolver, or other firearm, cannon or torpedo shall be discharged or set off within the city of Washington, or the fire limits of the District of Columbia, without a special written permit therefor from the Major and Superintendent of Police, nor within five hundred yards of the Potomac River, Eastern Branch, or Anacostia River, Rock Creek, or any public road, highway, school-house, building or buildings, shed, barn, outhouse, public park, reservation, graveyard or burial place, playground, golf course, tennis court, picnic ground, camp ground, or any place where people are accustomed to congregate, inclosure for stock, railroad track, outside of such fire limits for the District of Columbia, without the written consent of the owner or occupant thereof and a special written permit from the Major and Superintendent of Police.”

No law or regulation can, however, be effective unless it is sustained by public sentiment. The Commissioners were fortunate in securing the voluntary and enthusiastic support of the members of the Board of Trade and the Chamber of Commerce, the representative local organizations, and, in general, the citizenship of the capital was favorably disposed to the new order of things. Committees were formed for the purpose of providing two patriotic public entertainments, one in the morning to consist of the reading of the Declaration of Independence and appropriate addresses, and the other to include a fine display of fireworks at night upon the ellipse south of the White House. The funds for the latter were promptly supplied by public subscription, and the affair was managed most successfully by a volunteer committee, no less than forty thousand people witnessing the display. In the meantime, the residents of various sections of the District undertook to uphold sympathetically the Commissioners by devising their own collective celebrations. In Cleveland Park, an attractive suburban district, there was a public meeting with a programme of fireworks handled by experts, while Bloomingdale, another well-settled section, enjoyed a day of athletic sports, speeches and aerial fireworks. In short, the people of the District of Columbia cheerfully accepted the proclamation, which was issued by the Commissioners, inviting attention to the police regulations which had been adopted “to provide against the dangers incident to the manner of observing the Fourth of July and Christmas, which previously prevailed,” and appealing “to the people of the District of Columbia heartily to second their efforts by observing and counseling the observance of these regulations.”

Nor were the entertainments already mentioned the only forms of celebration. The Washington Post conceived the idea of an automobile floral-flag parade, and this event proved to be a genuine spectacular and artistic success. There were over a hundred motor cars in line, and the decorations were extremely novel and pleasing. One automobile was reconstructed into an accurate representation of the Confederate ram Merrimac, and was manned by young men in sailor costumes; another was converted into a yacht with masts and sails; another was a floral boat apparently drawn by an enormous white swan; and still another was in the form of a pergola, decorated with wistaria vines and blossoms. An electric machine which elicited the applause of the thousands who lined the route of parade was apparently a huge wicker basket of pink roses, in the center of which and surmounted by a canopy of roses was seated the lady who operated the car. Another electric machine was a symphony in red, white and blue. Altogether, the event proved to be a most unique and beautiful celebration, and the committee of artists who awarded the cups and other prizes, valued at $1,500, was confronted by a most difficult task of selection. When it is considered that the affair was the first of its kind in the National Capital, and was merely suggested as one form of rational enjoyment, its successful execution occasioned deserved felicitation, and when it is repeated next year, as it will be, the national holiday will be made literally a day of delight.

The real value, however, of the experiment in the National Capital still remains to be recorded. Instead of a long list of dead and injured, there was not a single gunpowder accident in the city, and the two minor alarms of fire were not occasioned by explosives. The contrast between the recent Fourth of July celebration and those of previous years, is strikingly shown in the following figures:

Number of persons treated at local hospitals for injuries from explosives:

HOSPITAL. July 4, 1908. July 5, 1909.

Emergency 25 0

Casualty 6 0

Freedmen’s 5 0

Georgetown 10 0

Providence 0 0

Homeopathic 52 0

Children’s 2 0

Totals 104 0

Before the Fourth there was some division of opinion as to the outcome; after the Fourth the public sentiment was practically unanimous as to the humanity and wisdom of a safe and sane celebration. This sentiment found editorial expression in the daily newspapers, and those communities which are considering the advisability of abolishing the dangerous customs of the past, might with great profit read these comments. They are here incorporated almost in their entirety:

Washington Herald:

Having celebrated the Fourth of July in a safe and sane manner, it is reasonably sure that Washington will not hereafter entertain the thought of going back to the stereotyped, unsafe, and insane way of observing the anniversary of the country’s independence. It is true that the day, for the most part, was so quiet as to be almost Sabbathlike; but, thanks to an ideally delightful spell of weather, every hour, from dawn until the night festivities concluded, was full of wholesome enjoyment. A welcome relief it was, indeed, to be spared the affliction of the ear-splitting firecracker and toy cannon nuisance and kindred evils that made other Fourths so hideous. And a more welcome relief still is the knowledge to-day that Washington, at least, has not a long hospital list of maimed and suffering victims of the reckless use of explosives.

Washington Times:

On the day following the Fourth, it will be difficult to find many people who will not give their approval to the innovation. Nobody’s home was burned up, nobody succeeded in killing himself or his neighbor; there are no incipient cases of lockjaw under observation. The tendency to those other forms of disorder which grow out of indulgence in the cup that cheers—and perhaps deafens—was less marked than ever before. The police and the hospitals alike had an easy time of it. Not a single accident worthy the name, of the distinctive variety which has made Independence Day an occasion of carnage and terror, took place in Washington. That is a remarkable record.

Safety and sanity, in short, vindicated themselves to perfection. Promiscuous noise was simply impossible because of the strict prohibition of the sale and use of fireworks and other abominations in the racket-making line. Altogether, it was a glorious day, and it is sincerely to be hoped that it will come in similar fashion once per annum, and in time lead people to a cheerful ability honestly to rejoice that their country did attain its freedom.

Papers in unsafe and insane communities please copy.

Washington Star:

After yesterday’s experience it is doubtful whether Washington will ever return to the old customs of Independence Day celebrations. The “safe and sane” Fourth idea was carried out in a manner to please practically the entire community, to give some form of entertainment to the greatest possible number throughout the day, without contributing a single accident of any kind to the records.

Taken in detail, yesterday’s celebration features were calculated to please all classes. For those who wished to dwell seriously upon the patriotic aspect of the occasion there was the open-air meeting, where exercises appropriate to the day were held. For the children there was no lack of amusement, with the daylight fireworks diverting them on three different occasions. The floral automobile parade was a novelty that drew large numbers to the line, while the day was appropriately closed with an exceptional exhibition of fireworks, concluding with the illumination of Pennsylvania Avenue.

An ideal day in overhead conditions, yesterday afforded the best opportunity to try the new idea of Independence Day celebration. In consequence of all the arrangements and restrictions there was a remarkable lack of noise from morning till night. There were no fires and the hospital ambulance was less busy even than on ordinary occasions. The policemen had an easy time, being occupied chiefly in preserving lines at the various points of congregation. There was a noteworthy lack of public intoxication. In short, Washington demonstrated that it can enjoy itself in a dignified, decent manner.

With the experience of yesterday in mind, the authorities and citizens who engage in such enterprises can proceed next year to organize an Independence Day celebration that will be even better. It has been proved that it is possible to stop the promiscuous discharge of firecrackers and other forms of explosives. This is in itself an immense advantage. There is no reason to doubt the ability of the Commissioners to maintain order in the same manner next year. It may be suggested that the 1910 programme should include more public music of a patriotic character at intervals during the day and that the chief feature of the occasion be some form of historic pageant.

In the face of this splendid and sensible record, it is appalling to read the reports from other cities. The death of Arthur Granville Langham, uncle of the Baroness von Sternberg, which occurred in Louisville, as the result of the explosion of a cannon cracker, was especially tragic, but the occurrences in other municipalities are none the less sad because the victims were not as prominent in social and financial circles. Here are some of the figures:

New York. Five killed, 197 injured by fireworks, 82 injured by pistols, 23 injured by cannons and 3 injured by torpedoes; also, 116 fires started by explosives. Notwithstanding this list of victims, one of the most prominent New York papers remarked that New York had broken all records for a safe and sane Fourth of July.

Philadelphia. Five dead, 3 fatally injured, 8 seriously injured and 420 painfully injured; 80 fires.

St. Louis. Four dead, 205 injured.

Wilkesbarre, Pa. Four dead.

Pittsburg. One dead, 295 injured; fire loss, $50,000.

Memphis, Tenn. A crippled newsboy burned to death.

Wheeling, W. Va. One dead, 50 injured.

Buffalo. Fifteen children injured, 40 fires.

Boston. One hundred and ten persons injured.

Toledo. Boy’s left hand necessarily amputated and a fifteen-year-old boy blinded for life.

Kansas City. One death from lockjaw.

Elmira, N. Y. Two deaths from lockjaw.

Woonsocket, R. I. One dead and a dozen persons injured.

Other cities, without regard to section, afford a painful repetition of casualty. It seems strange that this annual holocaust should be tolerated. There is not a civilized country in the world which pays such a fearful debt to alleged patriotism as the United States. There is no question as to the devotion of the Japanese to their country, and yet their three national holidays are not marred by sad fatalities. Germany celebrates the Emperor’s birthday with the greatest enthusiasm, but without wholesale death and injury. France is patriotic, and yet France observes its festal days in a safe and sane fashion. In the City of Mexico, as the writer knows by personal experience, the celebration of Independence Day is a great popular success, and yet not one firecracker is exploded. The experiment in Washington demonstrates that dynamite and gunpowder are not essential to a thorough and patriotic enjoyment of the day. Surely the time will come when other cities will appreciate the importance of celebrating in some manner which will appropriately mark the day, and yet not leave a sanguinary trail of dead and wounded.

It goes without saying that the safe and sane method will not be departed from in the National Capital. In that city, at least, there will be an example of common sense which other municipalities might well emulate. There will be ample opportunity for the expression of patriotic sentiment, unaccompanied by death and disaster, and in less than a decade the people will look back to the ancient and barbarous customs, and wonder how they were ever tolerated for a single hour. Next year new methods of entertainment will be devised, and more consideration will be given to the children. This year the pupils of the public schools sang patriotic songs at the various gatherings, and the children enjoyed the automobile parade and the fireworks. The Fourth of July, however, is essentially Young America’s day, and in any programme arranged by a municipality especial consideration should be given to the little ones. With this detail not overlooked, there will be no question of the real success of any Fourth of July celebration. Certainly the experiment which the National Capital has successfully inaugurated has proven worth while; and if the example is generally followed by other cities, there will be safety and sanity everywhere, nor need the splendid fervency of our full-blooded patriotism suffer loss.

THE NEW INDEPENDENCE DAY

BY HENRY B. F. MACFARLAND AND RICHARD B. WATROUS

(As Observed at Washington, D. C., 1909.)

The programme for the day provided for a display of daylight fireworks at 7th and Pennsylvania Avenue, a central point with park surroundings and no nearby residences, from 9:30 until 10:30 in the morning; then the public meeting at the same place, surrounding the new memorial of the Grand Army of the Republic and its founder, Dr. Stephenson, where Senator Owen, of Oklahoma, made an oration, the Declaration of Independence was read, the “Star Spangled Banner” and “My Country, ’Tis of Thee” were sung, and the school children sang other patriotic songs, and the United States Marine Band volunteered and gave music. After this there was another display of daylight fireworks. At least 5,000 people, chiefly in family groups, attended the meeting and saw these fireworks exhibitions, and the children were delighted with the shows new to Washington. At half past two in the afternoon on the great ellipse south of the White House, at least 10,000 men, women and children listened to a band concert and watched another hour’s exhibition of the daylight fireworks, the grown-ups enjoying, as much as the children, the flags, balloons, paper animals, birds and fishes, liberated by the bombs high in air. Later in the afternoon a fine parade of automobiles decorated with flags and flowers, and arranged by the Washington Post, and for which it gave most of the prizes, passed up and down Pennsylvania Avenue, crowded by spectators, and around the Capitol and White House and down to Potomac Park where the judges awarded the prizes. In the evening there was an elaborate display of fireworks on the ellipse south of the White House, followed by a beautiful illumination of Pennsylvania Avenue. The newspapers estimated that between 40,000 and 50,000 people saw these night exhibitions. Never was there a more cheerful or good-tempered crowd. Apparently the young and old thoroughly enjoyed the whole day which had a picnic character for most of them. Several of the suburban communities organized their own fireworks exhibitions and some had public meetings as well.

The experience of the day suggested additions and improvements for the celebration of the next Independence Day. Historical pageants, a regatta, more field sports, more band concerts, and a wider distribution of the celebration points are among the things suggested for next year. The Joint Committee on Arrangements has already taken steps to provide a permanent organization to prepare for future celebrations, the Commissioners having announced at once that there will be no repeal or amendment of the regulation prohibiting the old barbaric methods of celebrating the day. The new order of things met the approval of President Taft who, upon being told by the Chairman of the Joint Committee, the plans for the celebration, wrote the following letter, which was read at the public meeting:

The White House, Washington, July 3, 1909.

My Dear Mr. Macfarland:

I have your letter of July 1st with respect to the celebration of the Fourth of July. I am very sorry that I shall not be in the city on that day because of a previous engagement; but I am heartily in sympathy with the movement to rid the celebration of our country’s natal day of those distressing accidents that might be avoided and are merely due to a recklessness against which the public protest cannot be too emphatic.

Very sincerely yours,

(Signed) Wm. H. Taft.

Hon. Henry B. F. Macfarland, Commissioner of the District of Columbia.

This letter, sent out by the Press Association with a brief account of the celebration, must have helped the cause of the “safe and sane” celebration of Independence Day everywhere.

NEW FOURTHS FOR OLD

BY MRS. ISAAC L. RICE

“When you are past shrieking, having no human articulate voice to say you are glad with, you fill the quietude ... with gunpowder blasts, and rush home, red with cutaneous eruption of conceit and voluble with convulsive hiccough of self-satisfaction.... It is pitiful to have dim conceptions of duty; more pitiful, it seems to me, to have conceptions like these of mirth.”—John Ruskin.

When the preparations for the celebration of a great anniversary are identical with those for a battle, it is time to pause and reflect whether a better observance of the day might not be advisable—to ask ourselves whether one might not be planned which would honor and not dishonor a glorious memory.

When Physicians, Boards of Health and Hospital Superintendents annually prepare for the reception and treatment of hundreds, or rather thousands, who will—before the close of the day—be brought in torn, burned, blinded; when undertakers prepare for the hideous aftermath of our National Birthday; when hundreds of thousands of the sick look forward with dread to the recurrence of this season of noise, which to them brings so much distress; when fathers and mothers all over the country shudder at the thought of what the Fourth may bring to their dear ones, I believe that one is justified in characterizing as a national disgrace that pseudo-patriotism which is responsible for so much agony.

It is impossible to exaggerate the stigma of shame incurred by the intelligent, adult proportion of the population in deliberately and scientifically preparing for the massacre and maiming of the youthful, ignorant and heedless members of the community. One city, for instance, added twenty-six surgeons to its ambulance corps, while another engaged twelve distributors of tetanus antitoxin, had field dressing stations prepared by its National Volunteer Emergency Service and sent around fifteen hundred vials of antitoxin serum to its hospitals. And thus many cities anticipated the return of their Day of Carnage, preparing to bind wounds and lacking the courage required to insist on the passage of drastic prohibitive ordinances which would have rendered impossible the shedding of blood.

I am sure that the thanks of all are due to one of our medical publications which, for years past, has compiled statistics upon statistics, based upon the price that we pay for our present-day mad celebration of the Fourth, for without the splendid work of the Journal of the American Medical Association we should be unable to estimate the cost of our annual holiday. As for the figures, so laboriously compiled, they are simply amazing. To think of fifteen hundred and thirty-one deaths and thirty-three thousand and seventy-three accidents, the fearful sacrifice voluntarily offered by us, within the last seven years, to our false ideals! And yet these tables, shocking as they are, give so inadequate an idea of the suffering involved! For of these fifteen hundred and thirty-one deaths, practically none came painlessly, almost all being accompanied by the convulsions of tetanus, the torments of fire, or the shock of injuries which changed healthy, happy children into shapeless, agonizing horrors. While as for the thirty-three thousand and seventy-three who were injured, but not fatally, how many are dragging out their wretched lives, blind, maimed or crippled!

What, perhaps, is the saddest feature, is the fact that almost all the victims of the Fourth are children, whose youth and ignorance and inexperience and helplessness would certainly seem to merit all due protection at our hands. Poor little ones, who play delightedly with danger! And then how many among the victims of the Fourth are those who have not been “celebrating,” but who have been shot down or burnt to death by the wanton recklessness of Independence Day “Patriots” (God save the mark!). Bullets, cannon-crackers, blank cartridges, and strings of Chinese crackers spare none. Little babes have had their heads torn open, mothers have been killed as they sat beside their children, scores of girls have been burnt to death by having lighted firecrackers or fireworks thrown in their direction. Runaways have been frequent because hoodlums love to throw great “bombs” under frightened teams, and one of the merriest sports has been to place large torpedoes on car-tracks. In Vincennes (Indiana), for instance, one Fourth was “celebrated” by placing boxes of explosives on the tracks, by means of which car windows were shattered, passengers terrified and injured, and traffic blocked for hours; after these boxes had all been picked up it was found that two barrels of explosives had been collected. In Boston, only two years ago, seventy arrests were made for using firearms, while in Pittsburg a party of rich, young hoodlums terrorized the holiday crowds by dashing along in an automobile, firing volleys of shots up and down the streets and into the shops. Pittsburg’s arrests July 4, 1907, numbered 300. But, then, what can we expect when we repeal for a period of twenty-four hours almost all laws regarding safety and sanity?

As for the licensed recklessness, responsible for so many accidents, the recital of some of the mad acts to which it has led in the past is simply incredible. Some of these acts were: the throwing of dynamite bombs and giant crackers and the firing of revolvers into holiday crowds, the tossing of lighted firecrackers into the laps, or against the thin clothing, of women and girls, resulting in their being roasted to death; the filling of pipes and tin cans with dynamite, or the stuffing of bottles with lighted firecrackers—all with inevitable consequences. These are but a few of the acts which caused these 33,073 accidents, but the excuse for all was always the same—Patriotism! If this, however, is Patriotism, then it recalls—with but a slight variation as to meaning—that utterance of Dr. Johnson’s: “Patriotism which is the last refuge of the scoundrel.” However, it is not Patriotism, but only craving for noise and excitement and danger which kills and blinds and maims on our Day of Carnage. Some, indeed, go so far as to declare that the usual celebration of the Fourth is “due to desire to break loose into a day of savagery and wallow in the unusual.” Perhaps, if a stop is not soon put to this mad orgy, we shall find ourselves changing the words of our National Anthem, as suggested by one of our dailies, and singing:

However, it is not Patriotism but Hoodlumism and the desire to revel in a day from which all sane and safe restrictions have been removed, which may be said to guide most of the celebrants on the Fourth, for most of them are undoubtedly ignorant of its glorious significance. That this is true was amusingly shown in one of our large eastern cities where between thirty and forty thousand children were asked in the public schools why they celebrated the Fourth of July. The favorite answer was said to have been “For shoots,” others were: “For a band,” “For chicken to eat,” and most astounding of all “For the King of the Jews” (the similarity of sound between Jew and July doubtless suggesting the last).

The duration of our “noise-fest” varies in different localities, in some being limited to a few hours, in others being permitted to extend over several weeks. Where this premature celebration is allowed, it naturally entails great suffering on the sick, not to speak of the additional danger incurred by the youthful participants. It is this early start which, doubtless, prompted the remark: “The Fourth of July is the only holiday which begins before it happens.” As for the celebration proper, it generally starts on the evening of the third and lasts until the morning or the afternoon of the fifth. In some cities, however, it does not begin until midnight, in others not until four o’clock in the morning. However, even where the noisy period is the shortest, the suffering borne by our hospital patients is sufficient to excite the sympathy of all those with whom they come in contact.

Regarding the monetary cost of our celebration, New York City is reported to have spent about $14,000,000 on the celebration of two holidays, with a resultant loss of 11 persons killed and 768 injured. As for the total monetary loss to the whole country, it can scarcely be calculated, nor can the fire-loss be estimated. Regarding the latter, however, I have been enabled, through the courtesy of Mr. Miller, General Agent of the National Board of Fire Underwriters, to obtain a few figures which show that during five years (from 1898 to 1902 inclusive) there were 4,827 fires in the United States due to fireworks; in Massachusetts from 1902 to 1906 inclusive there were 278 fires due to the same cause; and in Boston in one year, 1906, 72 took place. But quite apart from the effect of these conflagrations on our fire-loss (which is about nine times as high as that of the chief countries of Europe—$3 per capita as against 33 cents), many accidents might perhaps be traced to carelessness engendered in the young by the annually repeated spectacle of a whole community playing with fire and explosives. I firmly believe that this one day of dangerous license exerts a pernicious effect upon the other three hundred and sixty-four days of the year.

An example of what an enthusiastically patriotic and yet sane and safe holiday observance can be, was given last May, when England and her colonies celebrated “Empire Day.” This fête was observed by tens of millions, scattered over one-fourth of the world’s surface, and yet not one death was reported—not a single accident marred the glory and the happiness of the day. In this splendid world-pageant, the citizens of to-morrow were the chief actors, and it is estimated that fully eight millions took part. Children in long procession, thousands of them in uniform, wearing flags on their breasts and carrying them aloft in an endless blaze of color, marched along to render homage to the Union Jack, which fluttered out above their heads as the little soldiers were reviewed, or as they sang the National Anthem. The floral emblem of the day was the daisy or, failing that, the bachelor’s button, marigold or marguerite—the watchwords were “Responsibility, duty, sympathy, self-sacrifice.” In addition to the National Anthem, Rudyard Kipling’s “Children’s Song” was also sung by millions of little ones:

As for France, everybody knows how joyfully it enters upon the celebration of its Day of Liberation, July 14th. Military reviews, artistically beautiful street decoration, free theatrical and operatic performances, music, splendid displays of fireworks from the bridges, and public dancing in the streets and squares, make up a day of happy and sane observance—a huge kermess. Perhaps no other country celebrates its birthday with quite the same stern simplicity, the same touching faith as Switzerland, when on August 1st, no outward manifestation of the national thanksgiving is remarked, except in the ringing of bells and the blazing of bonfires on the mountain peaks, or in the singing of a few inspiring songs. The whole nation seems to be listening to the voices of the past, while continuing its daily tasks, this sturdy band of mountaineers! And thus with the celebrations of yet more European countries, Germany, Sweden, Denmark and still others, everything is marked by sanity and order, and yet by true thanksgiving and joy.

But although the American abroad may well blush with shame in comparing our “Horrible Fourth,” our “Tetanus Day,” our “Annual Massacre,” our “Modern Massacre of Innocents,” our “Carnival of Lockjaw,” our “Bloody Fourth,” or our “Day of Carnage,” with the fête days of other lands, let him take courage, for at last it really seems as if “Explosive Patriotism” were “on the run.” Throughout the Union, scores of cities have already passed or are considering the passage of restrictive or, better still, of prohibitive ordinances, and countless organizations are getting into line in their efforts to substitute attractive features, such as children’s processions and merry-making, pageantry, musical festivals, picnics, and other safe observances for our present orgy of death. In order to show at a glance what has already been gained by legislation in preventing Fourth of July accidents, let us place side by side the results obtained a few months ago in two groups of cities. In the first let us put Washington, Cleveland, Baltimore and Toledo, which cities protected by prohibitive or restrictive ordinances, gave last Fourth of July a total of twelve accidents. The other four, New York, Philadelphia, Boston and St. Louis, which were all relatively unprotected, gave a total of thirteen hundred and ninety-seven accidents, or an average of almost three hundred and fifty apiece. Drastic ordinances and stern enforcement are required if we are ever to down our National Disgrace.

Let us protect our little ones from death and danger, and then the next step will be to learn to express “social ideals in action,” for as Mr. Luther Gulick so well says: “If there is any one thing, any one occasion, in connection with which there should be national community expression, it should be in connection with our celebration of American independence. This constitutes not only the pivotal point in the history of American institutions, but is the pivotal idea upon which democracy rests.”

Nothing is more inspiring than love of country, therefore let us advocate a “religion of patriotism” and do away with a false death-dealing patriotism which, annually, on our National Birthday disgraces us in the eyes of the whole civilized world.

AMERICANIZING THE FOURTH

(A Suggestion for a Pageant of Liberty.)

BY ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER

The old, undemocratic idea of honoring the birthday of American independence is embodied in annual explosions of barbarism which have already done to death many more persons than the Revolutionary War destroyed. Indeed, our peaceful celebration seems as much more dangerous than the old style of warfare as small-pox is more dangerous than chicken-pox.

Our new festival in honor of Liberty is—or is soon to be—very different. Instead of a day of pseudo-patriotism,—a Moloch-day sacred to blinding and maiming our little ones, to shredding and roasting them alive, blowing them to bits or allowing them to struggle to their death in the horrible clutch of tetanus—there is proposed a day of the deepest, fairest, most enthusiastic, most genuine patriotism; a day of emphasis not upon erratic individualism but upon national solidarity; a day of fun yet of education and inspiration to old as well as young and to all the nations that are now being fused in our gigantic melting pot. In a word, the new movement aims, as it should, to make the Fourth our most profoundly American holiday.

The recent rise of the Independence Day pageant is a by-product of two wide twentieth century movements: the new classicism and the new democracy. The new classicism is behind the current tendency of certain of the arts to react from the rich, vague elaboration of an exaggerated romanticism toward plain, clearly organized simplicity. In a word, it is trying to restore a normal balance between the emotional and the intellectual elements in art. In music this movement is led by Max Reger, the modern Bach; in architecture it is felt in the Art Nouveau and, in America, in such significant buildings as the New York Library and the Pennsylvania Terminal; in literature in the recent rebirth of the drama, of which the pageant is a near relative. For the pageant has been defined as “a dramatic presentation of the history of a community or of the development of a phase of civilization, given by the people themselves.”

The movement called the new democracy is slightly older. Under President Roosevelt this country discovered a new and more vital meaning in the old term “democracy.” And it has not taken us long to find out that on Independence Day the square deal is less thrillingly symbolized by the maiming and slaughter of innocent thousands through the meaningless cracker and pistol than by the coöperation of all nationalities and social grades on our shores in great, concerted movements, large with the meaning of the past, the present and the future America, and glowing with the local colors of the many peoples that have made and are to make this nation.

The inevitable medium for such expression is the pageant. And though this form of celebration is still in its early infancy and has not yet attained even the modest measure of clarity already reached in other arts by the new classicism, nor even the puny measure of real democracy exhibited to-day by our “square deal” renaissance, yet it is quite as big with promise as they.

The Pageant of Liberty, which is here proposed, is based on the idea that America was the pioneer in that modern struggle for liberty which has played such a striking part in the world’s history since 1776. Our War of Independence inspired the French Revolution which, in turn, brandished the torch of liberty through Europe during the nineteenth century until, in our day, the flame has spread to other continents.

This Pageant consists of a parade of simple floats which may or may not end in a dramatic and choral performance or “masque” in some athletic field or fair ground or stadium. The floats and their costumed characters are to be the actors in this masque.

These floats need not be elaborate or expensive or hard to construct. In most cases all that is required is a plain large truck, festooned with simple garlands, and with the wheels hidden in oak branches. This truck carries the necessary characters, dressed, of course, in the costume of the period.

There need be none of those complicated, elaborately colored, pyramidal structures of “staff” which endangered the success of the Hudson-Fulton Celebration in New York City. For they are difficult and costly to prepare and doubtful of effect. The effect sought should be pictorial rather than sculpturesque. In many cases a single small platform or table is the only “property” required.

The floats in procession represent the history of the modern struggle for liberty. This history, however, may be depicted as fully or as sketchily as the particular resources of each place suggest, each foreign colony in a town working up its own float under central supervision.

In our day most American cities and towns have a large percentage of the foreign born. Let us suppose, for example, that a certain large town consists of the following nine nationalities: Americans, French, Irish, Servians, Germans, Greeks, Hungarians, Italians, and Persians. In that case its particular pageant would consist of at least ten floats, each attended on foot or horseback by its appropriate escort of the same race, preferably in national costume, and by bands of music playing—perhaps on native instruments—those national airs most nearly identified with the particular historical event set forth.

I. The American float will naturally head the procession, for precedence in this pageant is fixed by the historical order in which the various struggles for liberty occurred.

The American float might represent the Fathers sitting about a table and signing the Declaration of Independence, with the Liberty Bell hanging aloft. Or it might be boat-shaped, with Washington in the bow, crossing the Delaware and tattered soldiers straining at the oars or poling away at imaginary ice-cakes.

The other floats would follow in this order:

II. France. King Louis XVI is forced to recognize General Lafayette, the commander of the new National Guard, on July 17, 1789, and affixes to his own royal garments the tricolor cockade of red, blue and white, the symbol of liberty. This event occurred three days after the storming of the Bastille, a subject that would not lend itself well to pictorial treatment.

III. Ireland. Some incident from the Rebellion of 1798. The float might be in honor of the patriotic Society of United Irishmen and of their founder, Theobald Wolfe Tone. Or it might represent the dramatic betrayal, on May 19, 1798, of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the promised leader of the revolt.

IV. Servia. Some incident from the splendid rebellion of 1804 when the Serbs, who had been galled by the Ottoman yoke for more than four centuries, rose and drove the Turkish dahis out of Servia. Their two leaders were Black George and Milosch who have been called respectively the Achilles and the Ulysses of Servian history. The float might give the crucial moment in the decisive battle of Schabaz, with Black George leading his men against those picturesque standard-bearers of the Turkish army, the bravest Begs of Bosnia.

V. Germany. It is not so easy to find a moment in the German struggle which is both significant and simple enough for our purpose. Perhaps the “Wartburg Festival” would answer. Some historians treat this incident in lighter vein, others seriously. But all agree that the government reactionaries took it very much to heart and at once began a reign of tyranny that was largely responsible for the revolutions of ’30 and of historic ’48. At any rate the Festival would make a most effective float. This was the way it happened.

A couple of years after the battle of Waterloo secret political societies were formed all over Germany among the students and the athletes. These were called the Burschenschaften and the Turners. On October 17, 1818, several hundred of these young fellows met at the Wartburg (the ancient castle which had sheltered Luther after he had defied the pope and the emperor). That evening they gathered about a bonfire and fed it with various symbols of despotism and with the effigies of reactionary books, while, hard by, the Turners did exuberant gymnastic “stunts.” This float could be made most realistic with a genuine bonfire and a couple of Turners in the rear performing, perhaps, on a horizontal bar. The decorations should be in black, red and yellow, the colors of German liberty.

VI. Greece. The float might merely show a group of the picturesquely costumed leaders of the Revolution of 1821. There would be General Kolokotrones, Marco Botzaris (the Suliote chieftain immortalized in Fitz-Greene Halleck’s poem), Admiral Miaoulis, Kanaris of fire-ship fame, Karaiskakis, the daring guerilla, and Lord Byron, the poet of revolt, who gave his life for the cause, and without whom there might have been no Greek independence.

A more dramatic subject would be found in the Greeks’ welcome of Byron when he arrived at Missolonghi in the fall of 1823. The costumes of this float would be particularly effective.

VII. Hungary. One turns naturally to the events of April 14, 1849, when, on Kossuth’s motion, the diet proclaimed the independence of Hungary. This ought to be as practicable as to give the signing of our own Declaration.

As an alternative scheme, General Görgei could be shown, surrounded by the evidences of some of his victories, such as Szólnok, Isaszeg, Vácz, and Nagysarló.

VIII. Italy. Italian liberty might well be epitomized in the spectacle of a red-shirted Garibaldi leaning from the balcony of the Foresteria (the balcony could be made out of two packing boxes and a bit of railing) and addressing the jubilant Neapolitans on Sept. 7, 1860, at the close of his conquest of the Two Sicilies.

IX. Persia. This unique float would show a handful of the Mujteheds, or higher Mohammedan priests, taking refuge, or “bast” before the shrine of Shah Abdul Azim near Teheran, as they did in 1905. The taking of “bast” in some sanctuary or other place of protection is an old Persian method of political protest. In this case it inaugurated the recent revolution which won Persia a constitution.

X. Liberty. The final float would be devoted to displaying the charms of the most statuesquely beautiful young woman in the community,—who would be dressed and accoutered rather like the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor, only, one hopes, with somewhat better taste.

In this order the procession would parade the principal streets. Then, finally it would march to the stadium (or athletic field) for the dramatic part of the pageant, if this part were found desirable.

But before passing to the masque, a few more suggestions must be offered about the parade.

The idea already outlined is capable of almost infinite expansion. For most of the immigrant nations in our country have undergone struggles that were inspired, directly or indirectly, by 1776.

Suppose a town wishes to celebrate its next Fourth with a Liberty Pageant;—it has merely to select an Independence Day Committee as Springfield did. This committee prepares a list of the different local nationalities, and decides on the most important modern struggle for liberty in the history of each, and finally, on the characters or events that will most simply and effectively epitomize that struggle in float form.

A few picturesque Tyrolese, for instance, could make a thrilling picture of the gallant rising of Andreas Hofer in 1809. The Croatians have a spirited picture in the 1849 proclamation of their independence of Hungary. The Poles would find a spirited subject in the rebellion of 1830, which began with a band of brave students trying to seize the Grand Duke Constantine at his palace near Warsaw. Cuba could recall her Declaration of Independence of Oct. 10, 1868, or some event of the late war. Spain could have a Ferrer float. Norway might remind us of her recent bloodless separation from Sweden. Russia, of one of the many dramatic incidents in that long, bitter fight for liberty whose end is not yet in sight.

Not alone by increasing the number of participating nations is this idea capable of almost endless development, but also by increasing the number of floats for each nation. The history of most of the struggles already alluded to contains dozens of alluring subjects. The number need be limited only by the resources and the enthusiasm of the community.

Behind the national floats international ones might follow, representing such world-movements as those for:

Religious Liberty

Freedom of Speech

Freedom of the Press

Abolition of Slavery

Extension of the Elective Franchise

Popularization of Government

Destruction of Special Privilege

Emancipation of Woman

Abolition of Mob Rule

Abolition of Child Labor

Etc., etc.

So much, then, for the possibilities of expanding the idea. On the other hand it is capable of just as extreme contraction and simplification for use in the smaller, less wealthy communities.

By taking a little more care in costuming the marching escorts an effective pageant could be arranged with only five or six floats.

Indeed, it is not absolutely essential to have floats at all. Nearly all of the situations suggested above could be adequately represented by appropriately costumed groups on foot; and there would even be this positive advantage, that leaders like Garibaldi and Kolokotrones and Black George might appear at the head of a more realistically adequate body of troops than could be assembled upon a float.

According to this plan the various foes of liberty might also appear in force, and sham battles could be fought in various outskirts of town earlier in the day (let us hope, with noiseless as well as smokeless arms!) before the various units unite in procession.

If the parade is combined with the performance of a specially written masque, the combination would obviate many of the usual objections to the ordinary “safe and sane” Fourth. The masque would provide a most desirable dramatic and educative element. And, by charging a small admission fee, this performance would ordinarily pay the entire expense of the celebration, including the expense of engaging a competent pageant master. Now a pay performance without the free parade might, under the circumstances, be considered an undemocratic way of celebrating what should be our most democratic holiday. But in combination with a free parade the admission fee would be unobjectionable, and the masque would, more than anything else, stimulate that deep, thoughtful patriotism whose lack to-day is as grave a defect in our barbarous Fourth as its cruelty.

The idea of the masque has as yet been worked out only tentatively. Its development is the business of a dramatic poet. Roughly speaking it would proceed somewhat as follows.

When the procession arrives at the stadium the floats would enter in their historical order, each accompanied however, by only the small, specially trained nucleus of its marching escort. The floats would circle the inclosure once or twice, and then divide into two files, forming a lane of honor through which the Liberty float would move slowly and take up a position in the center of the inclosure.

Its escort would then sing a chorus which ought to be as eloquent and beautiful and suggestive an exposition of the nature of abstract liberty as Swinburne’s “Hertha” is of the soul.

When this is finished the Americans would approach this central figure of Liberty and recount, with music and dramatic action, perhaps, their struggle in her honor, ending with America sung with full chorus and band. Then the Americans would take up their position in the secondary place of honor opposite.

Hereupon, keeping to their historic order, each nation would advance and after greeting the American float as the pioneer of liberty, would approach the goddess and briefly recite their deeds in her behalf, each particularly emphasizing the unique qualities which it brought to its own struggle, and which it is ready (by application) to bring to any further struggles in the same general cause.

These national recitals might be managed in various ways. Dependent upon the size of the stadium and the available creative talent among the organizers, they might be spoken or sung, solo or in chorus, in prose or verse, or both. Of course it is desirable that the masque should be composed entirely by the best poet and set to music by the most inspired composer obtainable. But it is quite conceivable that local amateurs might rise to very satisfactory heights in an emergency.

Even in case of rain it might still be possible for the leading characters to present this masque upon the stage of the largest local theater concert hall.

After each nation has separately recounted its prowess, and all are grouped effectively around the central figure, Liberty reminds them that though they have done heroic deeds in the past, much remains to accomplish in the present, even in this land of the free. She then proceeds to describe what foes still menace our real freedom in America, such foes as special privilege, mob rule, political corruption, white slavery, treatment of the feeble-minded as common criminals, a capitalistic press, and so on.

Then in the final grand chorus the united nations would join together in proclaiming that, strengthened by their separate struggles overseas, they here and now unite their efforts to make this land, in deed as in name, the land of liberty.

Could anything make more swiftly and surely for national solidarity than in some such way to stimulate each national element in our forming civilization to bring the best it has to the service of the future America? And what more patriotic and fitting deed could be accomplished than to transform the birthday of modern liberty from a day of meaningless destruction into a day of construction fraught with profound and beautiful significance?