Chapter X: Introduction (8)

“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:

July 4, July 5,
HOSPITAL. 1908. 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:

“My country, ’Tis of Thee,
For Thou hast Crippled Me.”

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:

“Lord of our birth, our faith, our pride,
For whose dear sake our Fathers died,
O, Motherland, we pledge to thee
Head, heart and hand through years to be.”

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.