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.