The journal of the American-Irish Historical Society, Vol. IX, 1910Various
History
The journal of the American-Irish Historical Society, Vol. IX, 1910
Various
American-Irish Historical Society -- Periodicals; Ethnology -- United States -- Periodicals; Irish Americans -- Periodicals
For Thursday, September 30, came another splendid day when the military
parade made New York tingle with marching tunes and the rhythmic tramp
of men. Here was something that always quickens the popular pulse. We
had seen many like it in this big, thrilling town, but none that
surpassed it. The primal impulse coming from the thought: “Here are our
defenders; here our men who face death for Fatherland,” has to answer,
no doubt, for the cheers that greet the men at arms as they swing
marching by. When kingcraft added pomp, glitter and jingle to it and
tamed the trumpet to sing a siren song, and patriotism fluttered flags
above it rich in color and hung on gold-tipped spears, the magic was
complete. Yet this pageant showed us more in one way and less in
another. More, in the fact that it showed us thousands of soldiers and
armed man o’ warsmen from many alien ships and lands—some time or other
our possible enemies, our possible allies—but all keeping step with our
own brave men in the name of a pictorial friendship and in the hope of
an unbroken peace; above all paying this passing tribute to our city and
our country. Less, in that it showed us the stripping off of the gauds
and finery of war, bringing more directly home to us that war today will
none of these, but must keep the human material of battle in ready
fighting trim. Glory was marching in khaki and scorned all gold galloon.
Over the same path as the civic procession of Tuesday came Military
Glory in its ranked and regimented thousands, giving something of the
thought that if called on to take to the trenches or march to the attack
by the time it reached Washington’s arch, the men would be ready. Thus
it gave two distinct sensations to the hundreds of thousands who watched
it, outside the particular thrills that came when some well-remembered
or much-admired division of the troopers came tramping grimly by.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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