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.”