Independence Day

by Unknown

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.