# Million watch Legion veterans march for hours

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This account of the parade of the 1931 American Legion convention was published in the Detroit Free Press on September 23, 1931. It won the 1932 Pulitzer Prize for Reporting.
Million watch Legion veterans march for hours
Crowds Thrill to Martial Airs and Brilliant Uniforms; Ranks Gay with Song and Laughter
Surging Mass of Spectators Keeps Police Busy Clearing Route; Many Notables Present in Reviewing Stand
Story by William C. Richards, Douglas D. Martin, James S. Pooler, Frank D. Webb and John N. W. Sloan Sketches by Russell Legge.
The Legion marched.
The Yanks came—thousands upon thousands of them who have been sung about always as coming. Pulses quickened. Tempo moved up. The pendulum flew faster. And those who thought they had laid away the World War in a cobwebby file felt again a familiar throbbing.
The crowd that watched was estimated at a million. The number of marchers was put at 85,000 by National Commander Ralph T. O'Neil. Other estimates, among them that of Maj. Gen. Guy Wilson, field marshal, were as high as 100,000.
Still, this was nothing new. Men have marched so down the ages. They marched in Athens and Nineveh and Marathon fighting their various Armageddons and, when these were over, they marched behind their Hannibals and Alexanders and Caesars before those they had fought for.
Hour After Hour They March On and On
They, like these, fared off to wars inspired by ideals and buoyed by ladies' prayers and kudos. Men of war the length of time differ only in quests and instruments.
Up Woodward Ave. they swept, the men of our civilization, in lush impressiveness. They came, hour after hour, a part of the force which barged out in '17 when folly took the world by the hand and led it out on a sanguinary holiday to fill the meadows of France with dead.
All kinds of men, and the women they left behind them, filled the prideful, clicking columns. There were men who saw none of it and there were men who saw it all and played the string out. There were men too late at the final push, and men who made, in America, household names and tourist spots of tiny French villages previously unknown, unvisited, unhonored, unawakened.
There were men who never reached an outbound gang-plank and men who knew full well the green fumes rising off the long stretches of mustard, the bitterness of Archangel and the streaked sky of Belleau, clipped by lead and stumps standing like gallows-trees against the sky-line.
No Packs on Shoulders
Gay were these interminable columns. One realized that this, because of that gayness, was a censored photograph. This day they needed no khaki to blend inconspicuously into the landscape. They were not going up at night into the line and toward an unknown. This could be a lark in all a lark's pretty accouterment.
No awkward packs on the shoulders. Nothing of fear and solitude. Nothing of corruption and men crushed in mud, moaning ones masked with dust and calling to stretcher-bearers, men living and dying in dirty trenches—and away off beyond a broad sea a quaint commingling of preachment about mercy, in one breath, and the glorifications of barbarity, in the next.
Thousands Upon Thousands
So the thousands upon thousands marched, swinging down E. Jefferson Ave. and turning North at Woodward into the roaring canyon. It was only occasionally one could forget the magnificence of helmets, the tranquility of faces, the hilarity of bugles, and tailor for the paraders the garb in which they journeyed shipward more than a decade ago and finally, on some star-lit night when clover scented the air, heard for the first time the whine of shell and saw, perhaps, no house where one had been only a second before.
But it was no effort at times, for all we know that guns no longer grumble from the Alps to the Channel, to throw around this host its war-day aura and see its units vividly—the sappers and bombers, tank men and machine gunners, signal men, fliers, brass hats, artillerymen and all the myriad others the war casts for its shows.
Old songs strengthened old memories. Band after band blared the whistled airs of war; men came singing the tunes that lightened their packs a bit 13 years ago when their boots dragged:
    Oh, Mademoiselle from Armentieres,
    You might forget the gas and shell
    You'll never forget the Mademoiselle.
Up past the reviewers they came. "It's a Long, Long Trail A-Winding," the pipes of kilties skirling, drums pounding, fifes shrill and martial. Kipling's boots, boots, boots. Men from every state, every territory, every distant island, generals, top-sergeants and buck-privates.
Grand Stand Glitters
Pageants such as this must have epaulettes, of course, and the reviewing stand sparkled with celebrities, but it was the doughboy's show; and the high stand, after all, was just a place where hands came up briskly to salute and came down again to continue their work of making it a grand, care-free holiday as well as display of might.
Those who looked on, packing themselves into the smallest of spaces, began to gather shortly after 7 o'clock, and when the Legion entered Woodward Ave. at Jefferson at 12:10 p.m. o'clock in all its display of man power, downtown Detroit held room only for those with endurance and stout shoulders. Campus ropes, the police and volunteer gendarmes had all they could do to restrain the surging crowds, and the skyscrapers forming the perpendicular sides of the picture framed at their windows an additional army of watchers.
Shortly after noon, a sudden hush fell. Away in the distance rolled the drums. Police lines strained more than they had before. Hundreds of police struggled in efforts to control the pressing thousands. The Yanks were coming.
The Marching Yanks
And around the corner they did—those marching men who after reading history went out for themselves in 1917 and wrote some.
With mounted police and four companies of U.S. regulars from Fort Wayne, the Second Infantry, and Company I, of the 106th Cavalry, U.S.A., before them, the Yanks came with Ralph T. O'Neill, their national commander; Newton D. Baker, secretary of war for America in Woodrow Wilson's cabinet; Theodore Roosevelt, the son of a famous father and swinging along on foot; Gen. Charles S. Summerall, former chief of staff, and numerous envoys of foreign governments in the van.
Twenty-seven planes from Selfridge roared overhead filling the air with the clamorous stacatto of their engines, as the Regular Army men ushered in the Legion.
Behind the infantry rolled three floats of rare beauty—one wholly covered with oak leaves and pretty girls depicting a French village, another with a mammoth Liberty bell accompanied by a battalion of girls, and a third on which were massed young women in the dress of the various nations of the world
Many Envoys Present
Automobiles stopped at the reviewing stands to unload many guests, among them being: Capt. Louis Sable, of the French embassy at Washington; Admiral Baron Alfredo Acton, who was in full command of the Italian war fleet when hostilities ceased; Gen. Gustav Orlicz-Dreszer, of Poland; Col. Hanford C. MacNider, American minister to Canada; Col. Jack Mullen, Australia; Lieut. Col. Milton Foreman, former national commander; Mrs. Robert L. Hoyal, commander of the Legion Auxiliary's 30,000 women; Frederick Huff Payne, assistant secretary of war; Col. Baron Gaston de Bethune, of the Belgian embassy, Washington; Maj. Gen. B. H. Fuller, commanding the United States Marine Corps; L. A. Robb, state president of the New South Wales branch of the Sailors and Soldiers' League of Australia; Brig. Gen. Frank T. Hines, head of the Veterans' Bureau at Washington; Maj. George R> Parker, commander of the Medal of Honor men; Frederick M. Alger, president of the American Legion Convention Corp., and Lieut. Col. R. A. La Fleche, past president of the Canadian Legion.
Other cars dropped William D. Lyons, Minneapolis, Chef de Chemin de Fer of Forty and Eight; Mrs. Ethel Murphy, Le Chapeau National of Eight and Forty; Maj. Edward L. White, president of Fidac, the international soldiers' organization.
Mr. Roosevelt, in duck, headed the Porto Rico delegation and was wildly acclaimed as he smiled broadly and waved his hand to repeated greetings. Gov. Wilber M. Brucker and Mayor Frank Murphy, in the uniform of their World War outfits, rode horseback in company with Maj. Gen. Guy M. Wilson, chairman of the parade committee. Like a roll-call of the Republic, the states and every possession of America followed in the wake of the Legion champion band of Electric Post 228, Milwaukee, gorgeous in blue and gold and playing the song of the football field, "On, Wisconsin!"
The Yanks had arrived!
They gave the place of honor, behind the distinguished guests, to the Canadian Legion, to Hawaii, the Philippines and Porto Rico, and a single Alaskan trudging along magnificently with his shirt-tail out.
Burro From Phoenix
There came Arizona, proud leader of all state departments. By virtue of their championship standing in percentage of membership gains, the men from the land of buttes and deserts marched first. The Phoenix Post band in silver helmets and blouses of horizon blue set the cadence. Their mascot was a shambling burro.
Next came Mississippi. Then the orange trench caps of Florida waved down the avenue. North Dakota, swinging close behind, mustered half a hundred in her first contingent of Legionnaires. Flashing scarlet and white, the uniform colors of the Grand Forks Drum Corps drew a burst of applause from the grand stands.
From the Golden West, 20 standards were sent to lead the men of California. Their black bear mascot lolled in a broiling sun. White was the costume, appropriate to the day and circumstances.
Nebraska followed its band in rapid tempo. Vermont, led by the Montpelier Post band, forced a path in the same avenue. The crowd, over anxious to glimpse the columns yet to come, had closed in toward the car tracks. No longer could 16 men march abreast. Police waged a losing battle
Oklahoma Heads Seventh
The Seventh Division of the parade brought Oklahoma in the van. They were headed by the Bartleville Post band in field gray coats, scarlet trousers and silver helmets. A girls' drum corps, representing Chickasha, kept the beat for that post.
Another state department—Iowa passed the stand. The Fort Dodge Post band of 50 pieces raised its voice for the throng. Those in line were obviously feeling the heat. Official temperatures had been given by Norman Conger, government meteorologist, at 85 degrees. It was much warmer on the pavement where the line of march passed through a narrow canyon formed by the crowd. The Iowa men had doffed their coats and marched by in shirt sleeves.
Out came the old marching song, full-throated:
    I-O-Way, I-O-Way,
    That's where the tall corn grows.
Ambulances at intervales along the route were doing their bit in first aid work. Few fell out of the parade, but onlookers, in many cases, lacked stamina for the ordeal.
Mason City, Cherokee, Muscatine and Sioux City vied with one another in brilliant uniforms for their bands and drum corps. Dubuque, striking an individual note, sent a band dressed in brown and tan.
Commander Saluted
Kansas, the national commander's home State, was introduced by the massed flags of 10 posts. The sunflower decoration was distinctive. Robert Heitzel Post, home outfit of Commander O'Neil, named after his war buddy who was the first to fall in France, was led by Emporia Band and Winfield Band, well drilled. They halted the parade at the reviewing stand to pay respects to their chief and execute a few fancy maneuvers.
Memphis Post No. 1, one of the largest in America, introduced the Tennessee detachment, followed closely by New Hampshire with three post standards, and Gov. John C. Winant as its distinguished guest.
Bulging human walls gave the line of march a snake-like appearance just beyond the reviewing stand, the Michigan Ave. mass resisting even efforts of the mounted policemen to drive them back. Near the Soldiers' Monument reviewing stand for notables, there was another bulge which gave the line a decided twist. East of Woodward, at State, there was another indentation from the side lines.
Rainbow of Color
Winston Salem, N. C., Band and Greensboro Band, with red berets and blue coats introduced the Greensboro Women's Marching Corps. The massed colors of this State, with several foreign flags intermingled with Old Glory was a rainbow of color. The marching ranks were well filled.
Police officers still wrestled with the Michigan Ave. bulge which closed in to the street car tracks.
Indiana, the Eighth Division of the parade, led by a 60-piece band, in grass green, entered the picture with more than 20 massed standards, and women's drum corps with red capes over white. The Indiana boys in solid lines were the most numerous so far, with at least 1,000 marchers.
New Albany Band in Persian blue coats and white trousers, with plenty of gold lace marched 30 men.
Elkhart Wears Scarlet
Fort Wayne's 80-piece band in blue uniform, was followed by Elkhart's, bearing a six-foot drum. The Elkhart group wore scarlet uniforms and scarlet tunics. Gary's band turned to black uniforms.
At 1:40 p.m., the crowd broke through police lines at Fort St., hoding up the marchers nearly five minutes while the lines were re-established. At the Campus and Woodward, the crowd forged half way out into Woodward and stayed there—another zigzag in the line.
La Porte, with a drum and bugle corps of 40 men, was followed by Lafayette, led by its 40 and 8 locomotive firing intermittently. An old gray mare trailed them. Logansport, Ind., in bright blue, came along with Michigan City, in gorgeous purple.
Force Line Back
The Indianapolis outfit was headed by its crack drum and bugle corps followed by a host of Legionnaires from the National Headquarters city. It was succeeded in the line of march by Columbus, Ind., veterans and the brass band of Valparaiso, whose deployed drummers and bugler were forced to close in as the crowds pressed farther out into Woodward Ave. As this contingent of the parade passed, police made a concerted "attack" on the crowd, forcing the line back.
Richmond, Ind., represented by a band which has been seen many times on the streets of Detroit, preceded in the line of march the huge Polar Bear Float of Gimco Post 87 of Alexandria, Ind. Airplanes continued to roar overhead as the parade neared its second hour.
Post 46 of Tipton, Ind., represented themselves as farmers and as such, made a favorable showing which was applauded by the agriculturally minded of the crowd. They were followed by a float representing a huge ear of corn.
South Carolina Gay
Bands, bugle corps and the shrill of police whistles heralded the arrival at the reviewing stand of the South Carolina Division, heading the Ninth Division of the parade.
Oregon Legionnaires, who are looking for next year's convention, followed the Carolinians in the Twelfth Division. A bugle and drum corps from Salem, Ore., was attired in uniforms consisting of white silk polo shirts and bright blue trousers.
Portland, Ore., Post No. 1, with a drum corps of 25 men with silver helmets and Sam Browne belts over scarlet coats, was another feature of the Oregon Division.
Tableau Heads Wisconsin
Massed flags of the Wisconsin State Department headed a tableau float representing the "Spirit of '76" and the "Spirit of 1917." This feature drew cheers from the crowd. It was done in bronze, the figures being posed by Legionnaires.
"On Wisconsin" was the march played by the band of the Waukesha, Wis., veterans, who supported their musicians 200 strong, in one of the largest parade representations from that State. In their contingent, was a nurse corps, nattily attired in red uniforms with overseas caps of the same color.
Sons of Michigan's sister state in the Red Arrow division were unrestrainable. It was the Legionnaires from Milwaukee who sang as they marched:
    'The Old Gray Hearse goes rolling by,
    'You don't know whether to laugh or cry;
    'For you know some day it'll get you, too,
    'And the hearse's next load may consist of—You.
They sang with a gusto that was infectious and those vets among the spectators, to whom it had a familiar ring, took up the refrain.
Fur Hats for Fund du Lac
There was a gap in the parade as this division passed which was a signal for the crowds to press still farther toward the center of the street, only to be thrown back as the fur-hatted drum and bugle corps of Fund du Lac, Wis., post, swung past the reviewing stand.
The second "steam engine" of the parade made its appearance as a feature of Voiture 410 of the Forty and Eight, Kenosha. Other comedy features marked this section of Wisconsin's marchers, one a man on a high old-fashioned high-wheeled bicycle.
Marinette, Wis., in silver helmets and blue uniforms, preceded a huge turtle-like float of Louisiana Legionnaires, whose State department, with that of Nevada, completed the Ninth Division of the parade.
The crowd virtually closed in around this odd vehicle, halting the procession temporarily. The first Louisiana group passed the reviewing stand at 12:23 o'clock.
It was a great day for T. H. Nichols, 83 years old, of Jackson, who served with the Second Massachusetts Infantry in the Civil War. Proudly wearing a badge of General Sherman he refused to ride in the parade.
"I didn't ride in our war," he said. "I was in the Infantry and am still in it. I march."
He recalled parading in Detroit in 1890. He fell in with the Louisiana delegation.
Especially during gaps in the parade were the crowds unrestrainable. They continued converging at the center of the streets, and at several places in the vicinity of the Campus the two sides came together. Police, however, were able to re-establish lines, using the street car tracks as their "line of defense."
Original police lines long since had been abandoned under the pressure of the mobs. A desperate effort was being made at 2:30 o'clock to re-establish them and push the onlookers back to the sidewalks. During this period, the parade was completely halted.
At 2:30 o'clock a motorcycle corp of the Detroit Police Department pushed up Woodward Ave. past the reviewing stand in an effort to open the way for resumption of the parade. More than 40 motorcycle men were in the squad that charged the converging lines of spectators.
Illinois Marches Proudly
Then came Illinois, leading the 10th Division. Illinois represents the largest of all American Legion State divisions.
They were the boys who formed the Prairie Division. They fought with the British at Chipilly Woods, and left their dead at the Meuse. They were the pivot of the Third Army Corps in the Argonne and faced the German shellfire at St. Mihiel.
They marched proudly—with reason. Among them were eight Congressional Medals of Honor, 110 Distinguished Service Crosses, 51 British crosses and 47 French decorations.
A lot they cared. They went by singing "Illinois, My Illinois," with massed flags and a business looking color guard of a dozen rifles at right shoulder and looking neither right nor left.
As far as the eye could see the street was filled with Illinois Legionnaires. Two hours and a half had passed since the parade opened and still the waves of color rolled up Woodward Ave. to be lost in the black mobs along the line of march.
A note of music spoke of the changing pace of the day. A band from Illinois struck up "America," the first time other than old army airs had crashed out.
The tempo of the crowd changed. The carnival spirit had struck a deeper note. The measured tread of thousands, pounding on interminably, the beat, beat, beat of thousands of drums, echoing and re-echoing through the deep canyons of the city street, fostered a realization that back of the color and the play and the music, there was the strongest organization in America.
The crowds sweltered under a pitiless sun, yet they stood patiently, fascinated by the unfolding panorama.
And always there was the dull beat of the drums. As one drum corps passed and the sound faded, another picked it up until it seemed as if the whole city throbbed and julsed.
Cermak Heads Illinois
Mayor Anton Cermak headed the Illinois delegation. He rode with a beauteous person symbolizing Miss Chicago.
Batavia, Ill., passed with another drum and bugle corps under flashing silver helmets. Enough steel hats were shown to equip another A. E. F.
A squadron of mounted police was called to push back the crowd before the Majestic Building. They rode their horses into the press and turned them deftly about.
Chicago In Force
Chicago was here in force. Sharvin Post, with another drum and bugle corps went by, playing what sounded like:
    Some day I'm going to murder the bugler,
    Some day they're going to find him dead.
    I'll step up on his reville and amputate it heavily.
    And spend the rest of my life in bed.
Some stalwart swain proved his love. He held his sweetheart on his shoulders for a full 15 minutes that she might view the passing parade.
The Hooligans, of Morris, Ill., dressed in clown costumes, added a touch of merriment. They were unique in their dress, since most of the units were in trim uniforms and marched in perfect line, eyes front.
Crowds Peril Police
For a full hour, between 2 and 3 o'clock, it seemed certain that the police would lose control of the crowd at any minute. Fully 50,000 people were massed in the circle before the City Hall and backed up on Monroe, Michigan and Fort. They broke rope after rope strung by the police and swayed out so far into Woodward that the passage way remaining was not more than 30 feet wide.
A pickpocket chose this minute to go to work and a shrill cry went up from his victim. A policeman dove for the suspected one, the crowd rushed out to see the cause of the disturbance and before the street could be cleared again, mounted officers from the 106th Cavalry were called on to sweep the pavements clear.
Every window in the Majestic, Ford, Penobscot, Union Guardian Trust and First National Buildings that gave on the scene of the parade, framed a dozen faces.
Evanston Draws Cheer
Evanston, Ill., bugle corps, in peacock blue with gold instruments, swept up the street playing:
    I can't get 'em up. I can't get 'em up in the morning.
    I can't get 'em up. I can't get 'em up, I can't get 'em up at all.
The crowd howled. The interval in the parade between the Spokane outfit and veterans leading the Minnesota state department saw clowning by the proverbial model T., which is capable of acrobatics. Up on the toe, down on the heel, and charges into the crowd, characterized the antics of this piece of machinery which was driven by members of the Spokane post.
"Who won the war? Skookum!" was the inscription emblazoned on the side of a dilapidated looking automobile in this section of the parade.
Gray Lakes, Minn., was represented by a one-man band. Blowing lustily on a big bugle and beating a snare drum, James Catalano, the only Gray Lakes Legionnaire, had a part all his own and he played it to the great amusement of the crowd.
A warning to followers of the University of Michigan football team was displayed by the Minnesota department. Marching under a banner of "The Gopher Gang," they carried another banner with the words, "Michigan, we are after the Little Brown Jug."
Each member of the division carried a football, tucked in his arm, much after the manner of Herb Joesting.
Girl Leads Corps
The girl drum major of the Duluth Drum and Bugle Corps, was a high stepper. She wore a beautiful red uniform which matched her complexion. She kicked even with her head in directing of her musicians.
The drum and bugle corps marched on. There seemed no end of this particular form of martial music, despite the 150 bands.
It was too much for one Negro drummer from Charles Young Post of Charlotte, N.C. Swinging his drum to his shoulder, he dropped out of line, mopping a wet brow. He craned his neck at the Selfridge Field plans and with a sigh, sank to a resting position on his instrument. The crowd swallowed him.
The crowd throughout the early afternoon was noticeably quiet. Occasionally scattering applause greeted bands or bugle corps of special distinction or a particular funny float or Legionnaire-actor would elicit a laugh and a hand clap.
Cheers in most cases were reserved for outfits.
"Yoo, Hoo, Charlie" frequently brought dyes right from "Charlie." Other than this, the crowd made no recognition of special outfits or men.
Maine Post With Deer
A deer carcass hung from the cabin timber of the log cabin float which featured the march of Log Cabin Post, Maine. Two old-timers sat at the rear of the cabin, their legs hanging over, smoking pipes.
At 3:25 o'clock it was necessary for members of Troop I, 106th Michigan Cavalry again to throw their horses against the crowds to clear way for the remainder of the parade. Even the cavalry had to stop as it neared the bottle neck formed by the lookers on at the head of Campus Martius.
In spite of this, the crowd seemed to diminish at points a hundred yards away from the avenue.
Many who had been unable to get a front line view apparently tired and turned away. Others forged to the front of the Woodward Ave. line, blocking the parade. The Massachusetts State Department, leading the various groups from that State, were held up in front of the reviewing stand for five minutes, while cavalry, operating from the Campus, and mounted police working from Grand Circus Park, attempted to open up the line of march.
Marched in Solid Rank
The Massachusetts men marched in solid rank, and for the first time since the parade started, the marching Legionnaires could be seen coming north from Jefferson Ave. in extended rank.
No wonder these men marched well. They are remnants of the old Yankee Brigade. They had bitter training in discipline over there on the Western Front. They were at St. Mihiel, the Aisne-Marne and Chemin Des Dames. Fifteen thousand casualties was the price they paid for their valor and their victories.
Not until 3:30 o'clock did the parade really open up and march in anything resembling a quick step. The sun, sinking behind the skyscrapers, threw shadows grateful alike to marchers and crowd over Woodward Ave.
It is a ditty they sung in the old days, revived for Detroit's carnival. They sung it well, in the Massachusetts parade, the boys from Lynn.
Like a corps of British grenadiers, whom their forefathers beat back at Bunker Hill, the Westboro, Mass., Drum and Bugle Corps swept up the streets at a typically British tempo.
This was their song:
    Oh, I don't have to fight like the Infantry,
    Fight like the Cavalry,
    Fight like the Artillery,
    Oh, I don't have to fly over Germany,
    For I'm a Q. M. C.—
Revere, Without Horse
Paul Revere—without his horse—swaggered up the avenue in the Massachusetts line. Malden, Mass., sent greetings to the citizens of Detroit on a banner so wide that the standard-bearers who carried it had to walk sideways to get through the lane between the crowds.
Lexington, Lowell, Watertown, Boston, Concord, all names inseparably linked with another day in American history, were blazoned for the parade. It was a wordless testimonial that Massachusetts keeps the faith.
South Boston's Auxiliaries, rejecting the Princess Eugenie styles of the day, went back to the three-cornered hats of early times and wore them with a jauntiness which set women in the crowd atwitter.
Mrs. Edith Nourse Rogers, congresswoman from Massachusetts, rode in the state commander's car in the Massachusetts Division.
The Jamaica Plains, Mass., drum and bugle corps evidently grew hungry along about 4 o'clock. It gave vent to its sentiments by playing the mess call all the way up Woodward Ave. The words ran:
    Porky, porky, porky, without a single bean.
    Soupy, soupy, soupy, the weakest ever seen.
Massachusetts Legionnaires staged what was heralded as a "tea party" behind the grilled panels of a yellow patrol wagon.
Shadows crept over the street and a freshening breeze unfurled decorative banners fixed to lamp posts and buildings. Drum majors seemed to revive as the sun was slipping in the West. The crowd was quiet.
Wear Yellow Slickers
Cape Cod went by wearing yellow oilskin slickers. It was followed by a Gloucester outfit in a large lifeboat.
Salem was represented by a delegation of Legionnaires dressed as witches and carrying brooms. East Lynn proved it had not forgotten how to drill.
To late afternoon arrivals on Woodward Ave. it seemed like a Massachusetts parade, the column of troops from the Bay State continuing for nearly two hours.
The first of the Massachusetts Legionnaires passed the reviewing stand at 3:20. Their last marchers trailed up Woodward at 4:45 o'clock.
Some humorous spectator, in a window high up in the Majestic Building, thought to give Legionnaires some of their own hotel medicine and a shower of water, whipped by the wind into a fine mist, floated down on the paraders.
Shower Paper on Parade
Unusual detachments were greeted from this building by showers of torn paper as they swung up the avenue. Fragments revealed there will be a shortage of telephone books in the building today.
Texans went in for hand organs in their musical presentation to Detroiters. The buddies from Port Arthur, Tex., put such an instrument at the head of their paraders. A milk-white horse led another Texas contingent.
Roar Welcome to Ohio
Ohio swung into view. These were neighbor boys. The Michigan crowd felt it knew them and it gave them a roaring welcome.
Not so many years ago it seemed that homes in Michigan were reading of these boys, members of the 37th Division (National Guard), fighting in the trenches of France, even as Michigan's own sons in the 32nd Division fought there.
It was not too long to remember that the Buckeyes, who marched in such gay panoply, in purple and gold and red and silver, and who cheered back at the crowd with youthful abandon, won their service stripes in some of the most severe fighting American troops have ever seen.
They threw themselves into the Argonne to hold the line—and they held it. Pershing rushed them across country to Belgium, where the Buckeyes stormed across the Escaut River—and ripped the German defense to bits. The white crosses which mark the graves of their comrades are to be found in every American cemetery from Roumain to Flanders Field. They were soldiers over there and they stepped like soldiers Tuesday.
Martial Airs Catch
Their total advances in the face of enemy resistance totaled 31 kilometers, but great as that progress was in war-time, they outdistanced it Tuesday in their march into the hearts of their neighbors of Michigan.
Perhaps it was the fact that the men from the first state south marched to the strains of particularly martial music, an abundance of bands having accompanied the 12,000 Legionnaires from this state.
    Put your head down, Fritzie boy,
    Put your head down, Fritzie boy,
    We were out last night in the pale moonlight,
    We saw you—.
The crowd was exuberant as the strains of the war song came from a 60-piece band in the line of march.
Display 'Legion Heirs'
One Ohio post made a play on the name Legionnaires. On a well-decorated float they placed a dozen small boys in uniform and surmounted them all with a giant sign which read: "Legion-Heirs." It got a hand and a shower of confetti from the crowd.
The first Boy Scout band in the parade followed the banner of Cleveland. More than 50 boys were in the organization.
As the Ohio organizations passed, crowd scenes were being enacted. Tired spectators ambled off to side streets for rest and refreshment, only to return to a new point of vantage. The crowd had moved so far into the streets that room was available on Woodward Ave. sidewalks and pedestrian traffic moved north and south without much difficulty. It was harder for the Legionnaires, however, who were confined to the narrow lane bounded by Woodward Ave. street car tracks.
The drum and bugle corps of Galion, O., was the 100th to have passed in the parade while 44 bands had completed the line of march. This was at 5:15 o'clock.
Line Speeds Up
The Columbus, O., band swung past the reviewing stand playing something that sounded much like "Beautiful Katy" but swung into a military march of quick beat. The parade moved at an accelerated pace.
It was followed, however, by a hearse of the Lorraine Post, which failed to give the exact number of "hommes" accommodated. "Worst Aid Station" was the name given this vehicle. It was occupied by Lorraine Legionnaires.
Paper water-bags thrown from an eight-story window of the First National garage at E. Congress and Bates Sts. became a counter attraction at this point. Groups gathered at the corner, waiting to see someone hit.
Colorado Units Follow
The Ohio state department was followed in the line of march by Colorado, whose Victory Post No. 4, led the contingent.
Notwithstanding that boys had climbed to their barrelled lenses, traffic lights along Woodward Ave. continued to operate as though the Legion's Big Parade were a thousand miles away. It was one-way traffic.
The Department of Pennsylvania, headed by a distinctive drum and bugle corps from Uniontown, stopped at the reviewing stand to pay its respects to officialdom. The throng cheered this unusually military outfit, dressed after the manner of Pennsylvania State Troopers, when they saluted the Governor and the National Commander.
Pennsylvania Stirs Crowd
The boys of the Keystone state aroused exceptional enthusiasm.
    'Keep away from the engineers,
    'Keep away from the engineers,
    'They'll break your back—
    With a shovel and pack—
    'Keep away from the engineers'
Perhaps it was a veteran of the Second engineers from Marne 12 years ago, who shouted the vers from among the Pennsylvanians. He sang alone but with the courage that made him an engineer, as he marched forward with his companions.
One of the most striking outfits was the green clad marchers of Greensburg, Pa., in Trojan uniform of green, topped with a black-plumed broad-brimmed hat. Jeanette, Pa., bore out their reputation of "Red Devils."
Greenville, Pa., another snappy unit in powder blue uniform clicked with the crowd. The brassy helmets and cardinal uniforms of James Zindell Post, of Mt. Pleasant, Pa., were distinctive.
Tarentum Post No. 85, of Tarentum, Pa., in white, preceded floats with the inevitable locomotive of the Forty and Eight. Quite a large detachment preferred riding in Pennsylvania busses to stepping off the long line of march.
The Quaker State was followed by Connecticut, arriving at the reviewing stand at 6 o'clock with a Police Post from New Haven at its head in uniform with black clubs.
Silk Hats Grace Danbury
Hartford, New London and New Haven were numerically strong. Danbury produced a float and a silk-hatted contingent. All alone at Danbury's rear came a still spry veteran in a G. A. R. uniform, who asked no odds on the tiring march and received a tremendous hand from his buddies of 1917.
Two bands of Detroit Citadel of the Salvation Army reminded the veterans of its war work.
Georgia Department stepped snappily into line in their shirt-sleeves and wearing blue field hats behind the Georgia Peach float bearing Peach Queens as well. There were four posts.
Jefferson Post, Louisville, Ky., introduced the Kentucky contingent to the spectators. In blue hats, red coats and white cross belts, the precision and rhythm of the marching bugle corps won generous attention.
The strains of "Old Kentucky Home" floated out from the band as Jesse M. Dykes Post, of Richmond, marched by.
Garbed as Jockeys
Man O' War Post, Lexington, Ky., called attention of the crowd to the favorite sport of the Blue Grass State. Its drum major was in hunting garb of red, the drummers and buglers in jockey uniforms.
Zachary Taylor Post produced a calliope.
Portsmouth, Va., brought another touch of the Southland and its float presented historical Colonial figures.
The press of the crowds had disappeared largely and the ever-coming Legion moved more briskly toward its destination as the clock turned into the early evening hours. Six and one-half hours had satisfied many of the spectators. They wandered away.
The Michigan units were still to come and that held thousands on the sidelines.
As the New Jersey outfits passed the reviewing stand at 6:30 the lengthening shadows of the day grew deeper and dusk began to creep down the city's concrete valleys. In the early twilight the 18 massed standards of the New Jersey boys gleamed like brilliant jewels.
The crowd began to flow back. Almost imperceptibly, but steadily the open spaces filled, and once again the police took up the task of keeping the street car tracks clear.
Cheer Wildly for New York
A shout went up from the crowds about the reviewing stand as a large drum and bugle corps dressed in gray and marching like cadets, swung into view. It was the vanguard of New York. Just as their colors passed the stand and the Legion standards dipped, the street lamps flashed on through their veils of red and yellow decorations, lending a touch of fresh beauty to the scene.
The crowd was cheering wildly for almost the first time as the Buffalo Drum and Fife Corps walked on at a quick step. Here was music that set the blood afire. Here was a sight to remember.
There were silver bands on the regimental flags of some of those units, and the crowd knew it. Who could forget the old 27th Division of the National Guard—the Yankee Division? Thrown into battle with strange comrades in arms—beside the British—they fought their fight for freedom. Their Armageddon was a bitter place known as Vierstandt Ridge, one of those ridges that the Germans swept with killing fire. Read the roll call of their dead and injured if you would know the stuff of which these men were made. Eleven thousand casualties. That's the record.
Some of them had been with the Yankee Division. They had shared the glory of that body of troops which, thrown into battle unprepared and untrained, to save the cause of the Allies, had stood like an iron brigade at Soudaine and then, re-attacking, had driven the enemy back 15 kilometers for good Yankee measure.
Overhead the red aerial beacon of the Penobscot Tower became a brilliant ball of light. The windows in the great office buildings which had been black all day, began to turn yellow and momentarily the street lights glowed brighter as the darkness deepened.
Corps after corps of the boys from New York came swinging up the street. The roll of the drums was punctuated minute by minute by exploding bombs.
Here Comes Michigan
At 7 o'clock came Michigan, led by Gov. Brucker and Mayor Murphy. Marching behind the color guard came the State's standards,—50 beautiful American flags, followed by an equal number of Legion banners in blue and gold.
One thought of the words "Like an Army with Banners," as they swept up the street. And of an Army which has earned its banners, if any ever won its standards in battle!
Gay and brave and colorful they looked last night and, in the kindly light, very young. They might have been the National Guard of old marching away for Waco. Surely they were not the hard bitted veterans of the fighting Red Arrow Division which came back to Detroit loaded with citations and medals of honor.
What a Record
Yet their record runs that way. These are the home boys who went over and smashed the Hindenburg line at the Aisne-Marne, making a total advance of 19 kilometers.
They fought with the French at Soissons and outflanked the Germans at Chemin des Dames. The French gave them a love term for that. They called them Les Terribles. These boys! Out there in tricky uniforms, and with the smiles of youth on their faces!
Nor was that all. They swept over the Meuse-Argonne front and for three weeks, they attacked and attacked again. Three weeks of hell, that was. Then east to the Meuse and when the Armistice came, they were still in the front line shock troops of the Nation, ready for the attack.
Three thousand eight hundred and ninety-eight dead they left in France. Eleven thousand wounded.
They marched again in the Big Parade and received an ovation. Virtually in close order formation, the men of this state, swung between the lines of spectators, the most imposing, in numbers, of the entire procession.
Crowds Begin to Shift
As day slipped over into night the crowd began to change. Many who had lined the streets since early in the day surrendered to hunger and went home to eat. Their places were taken by Legionnaires who had been near the head of the parade and who came back to watch their buddies. The Michigan detachment marched through rows in which the uniforms of their fellow Legionnaires were well sprinkled.
Michigan bands were given to the gay reckless tunes of the war. "Hinkey Dinky Parley Vous." "You're in the Army Now." The crowd lost its weariness and voices which they thought were gone came back. They could cheer. Those who could not applauded.
"Hail, hail, the gang's all here. What the hell do we care?"
The 23rd Engineers went by. A roar went up from the crowds that would have done well on Armistice Day.
Applaud Polar Bears
Silence fell, and then applause came from the crowd as the white form of a huge polar bear, mounted on a float, rolled through the lighted streets.
Behind the symbol of the strangest war ever fought by American troops marched a pitiful handful of that glorious regiment, the 339th Infantry, known as "Detroit's Own." First of the men in the national draft, they were. They came from the benches, the lathes, the counters and the offices of the city.
How they fought and died is an epic which needed no retelling Tuesday night and needs none now.
There were no great gaps between the Michigan units. Grand Rapids was only a few steps removed from Sault St. Marie. All moved at a lively tempo, bolstered by the gay airs. The crowd grew merrier and merrier. The Mardi Gras spirit seemed to emanate from the Michigan troops. Their comedians seemed just a little funnier, possibly because of their anticipation that the long day was nearing an end.
As the Michigan march proceeded and the skyline signs of the city blazed out overhead, it became evident that something of the Mardi Gras spirit was creeping back over the crowd and the marchers.
Shriek for Home Boys
The Michigan Legionnaires, being at home, where parades mean nothing to them, showed less military discipline than those of the preceding states. In fact, discipline would have been impossible with groups along the line of march shrieking wildly for "Jerry" or "Bill" or "Hank."
After the Polar Bears came the Second Division. The crowds, which had thinned shortly after 6:30, again swelled until there no longer was walking room on the sidewalks. The pedestrians who attempted to cross Woodward Ave. were entirely isolated. The Michigan sections came so close at the heels of each other that there was no crossing from the east to the west side of the street.
Each distinct group could be recognized, however, by the ripple of cheering that accompanied it. The flag which marked the head of each unit was the signal for greetings.
Carry Bunyan's Ax
There was something new every minute. A huge load of logging wheels, wheels on which the hubs were as high as the tallest man in the crowd, rolled by. On it was a huge ax sticking from a stump. That ax, the Grayling Post would have you understand, once was Paul Bunyon's, that legandary logging man.
A man and woman drum major led a lively band. The applause was spontaneous. Neither of the drum majors ever will know who was the favorite. Toward the close of the parade, the bands came closer and closer together. Their tunes merged. Sometimes their tempos clashed. But it was a case of who cares. The spirit of pageantry was in the crowd. Everything was grand.
Michigan's floats: Doughboys in a dugout and pretty Miss Liberty, on a pedestal behind, her protectors. Another float—this one carried a queen, Michigan's peach queen.
For the first time since the Michigan posts swept into Woodward Ave., there was a distraction. The crowd took its eyes from the parade. An airplane, whirring loudly, swung low until its wings were perpendicular with the earth and cut past the Penobscot Bldg. How the pilot missed it was a mystery that the crowd forgot in a burst of applause that greeted the Michigan company of Zouaves which widened into a company front as it passed the reviewing stand.
The maneuver of the Zouaves, intentional or otherwise, forced the crowd back and again widened a lane, combfortable for marching.
Darkness Set In
At 7:45 o'clock it was impossible to distinguish numerals on the Legion banners or to read the names of their posts. The crowd, assured that Michigan was passing, cheered every unit without partiality.
The Fifth Division was headed by a "German" band. Weird musicians dressed in ill-fitting uniforms! Their tunes did not fit any horn. It made little difference, for their music was lost in the laughter their antics earned.
The laugh was followed by a louder one. A box car passed and on its roof was, of all things, a hula dancer going through gyrations.
The clock in the City Hall tower struck eight just as the last of the parade passed the reviewing stand. The parade lacked 12 minutes of being as long as the Boston parade. It was exactly eight hours long.
A Day of Drama
It was a day that none who saw it will forget. Yet it was a day that memory can never reconstruct. One will not forget the rolling thunder of the drums, beating, beating, until they seemed to shake the brick and granite walls of the city's canyons. None will forget that steady tread of marching feet, going on hour after hour, nor the shrill, brass calls of the bugles. But these are only highlights. The picture itself can never be adequately redrawn.
The sheer drama of it! The patient, pleasant but determined throng. The flashing waves of color rolling up the avenue hour after hour, like the endless wash of some mighty human stream.
The blue sky, across which drifted white streamers like "the trailing robes of God." A glorious sun throwing each flash of color into bold brilliance.
The endless passing of the hours with the crowd growing larger each minute. The inexorable forward movement which defeated every effort to hold it in check.
The encroachment on the street, the imperceptible movement which finally filled the pavements until the Legion marched a path no wider than the car tracks.
Quiet But Determined
The quiet, so unlike that of other throngs Detroit has seen. There were no tears, no flaunted grief. There were no long continued, uncontrolled bursts of enthusiasm. The crowds were determined to see the faces of the marching Legionnaires, and having seen them, they were satisfied.
Long shadows creeping across the streets. Early dusk—the coming of the first lights. Great red signs bursting into permanent explosion and throwing their crimson over the passing columns.
Marching into the dusk the great parade rolled on. Every downtown light went on, and the whole scene was transformed.
Colors Become Radiant
Groups of American and Legion colors became moving clusters of jewels. Radiant colors of the marchers' uniforms were whipped into a riotous rainbow, through which unreal lines of moving men kept pressing.
Out of the yellow mist far down the street came the last of the Legionnaires. And out of the black night skies overhead there echoed the last roll of the fading drums. With one movement the tremendous crowd surged free.
For nine hours, all through the day and into the night, the police had battled them back. Trucks motorcycles, cavalry and men afoot had charged against the pressure of the crowding thousands. Inch by inch they had been forced back. Then, with the last tap of the last drum, the gates swung open.
The long, thin line of open space that had been so valiantly fought for by the guards through nine long hours was obliterated in a second. A swarming mass of humanity swirled under the dancing lights of the night.
Many fought their way to waiting cars and busses to go home to eat after a day in which hunger had been forgotten. But the greater number, like children released at recess, turned to play.
Gone was the martial spirit of discipline. King Carnival reigned and far into the night the revelry ran.
The Legion had marched.
Its day was done.
Parade Figures
Here are some statistics that will provide Legion arguments for years to come. In numberless veterans' halls, as long as their voices last, they will ask, was it a hundred thousand in the parade and a million in the crowd, or a hundred thousand in the crowd and a million in the parade?
Commander Ralph O'Neil says it was neither. According to the Commander's figures there were 85,000 marching men and women, part of the 120,000 Legionnaires Col. Frederick M. Alger estimates were in town Tuesday. John P. Smith, deputy superintendent of police, estimated 90,000 marchers and 1,000,000 watchers. Unofficial calculators in the reviewing stands guessed as high as 140,000 marchers.
According to Dr. Ellsworth Mills, chairman of the information committee, 70,000 Legionnaires had registered up to Monday night. Between 3,000 and 3,500 more registered Tuesday. Legion officials estimate that at least 50,000 other Legionnaires who did not register were in the city.
In the procession which lasted exactly eight hours, there were 155 bugle corps, 66 bands, 8 women's bugle corps, one women's band, 31 floats, 10 women's drill teams, and 11 men's drill teams.
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