NOTE
Thanks are due to Miss Jessie Welles, superintendent of circulation in the Carnegie Library, Pittsburgh, for the suggestion which originated “Our American Holidays.” And gratitude is also expressed to the Misses Tobey, to Miss Helen Miles and all the other librarians of the Bloomingdale Branch Library in New York who have generously given the editor such invaluable aid in the preparation of these volumes.
The Editor also wishes to acknowledge his indebtedness to Houghton, Mifflin & Company; The Century Co.; J. B. Lippincott & Co.; Bobbs-Merrill Co., and others who have very kindly granted permission to reprint selections from works bearing their copyright.
Robert Haven Schauffler.
INTRODUCTION
When, on the fourth day of each July, Americans keep the birthday of the nation we celebrate as our greatest secular holiday, the one which has the honor of being sanctioned by statute in every state of the Union.
From times as early as any living memory can reach, this anniversary has been observed in much the same fashion: by spread-eagle oratory, by unlimited and quite meaningless noise, and hospitals filled with the wounded and dying. It is curious that the festival should have gone on in this monotonous manner decade after decade until nearly the middle of its second century of life, and then suddenly should have encountered a revolution far more abrupt than the early, heroic one which it commemorates.
For our attitude toward the Fourth is undergoing swift revolution as regards our understanding both of the causes that underlay American independence, of the real spirit in which the Declaration was penned, and of the reasons why July fourth rather than some other day was fixed upon. Finally, the swiftest Fourth of July revolution of all is taking place in the way we celebrate it.