Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-05-31
MEMORIAL DAY
FIFTY YEARS AFTER
1t Has Been Transformed From
Time of Mourning Into Festival
of Spring in America--Europe Is
Preparing for New Day of Grief.
b. George w. poUGLAs

DS bIHOuNb W. DOOGbAD
A MOTHER in black, putting some flower.
IN on a grave; a. young widow leadlnl
small children who placed wreath on a
monument marking a spot where there was
no grave, but only memorial; and youths
notherless once, and fatherless now, stand
Ing sadly beside a mound in the cemetery
these are what were seen on the first
memorial Days. There was no set time for
decorating the graves of the dead soldiers
hfty years ago. But they were not left un-
adorned. There was hardly a family In the
North or the South from which sorle mem
Der had not been taken. Grief covered the
country like pail, not the sorrow for a
great national calamity, but the personal and
poignant sorrow that pierces the heart The
men who fought the battles of the Civil War
were hardly men. The average age of the
soldiers ives we'll under 20 years The boys
the flower of the youth, the young fellows
of high spirits and brilliant promise, had
gone to the front with the unbounded con
hdence of their audacious spirit they dared
Death They knew that they were protected
by their own invlncbe courage, and that
life, which had just begun for them, would
! continue far into the indefinite future. Their
fathers and mothers knew better And the
boys who went forth with smiling fGces were
brought back in a wooden box, while the
| church bells tolled and a squad of escorting
soldiers fired a final salute over in the grave
| yard But some of the boys did not come
back at all. They are lying now in un-
marked graves. Their names may be on a
tombstone in a cemetery somewhere, but
their great memorial is the national monu-
ment in Arlington Cemetery, dedicated ITO
the Unknown Dead"
1nformality of Early Observances
So the early Memorial Days, observed at
the convenience of the different mourners and
the different communities were personal and
intimate. Grief was very near to the friends
Of the dead. 1t was bond which Joined
rich and poor and buttressed the foundations
of our great American democracy.
1t was inevitable too, when so many fam
ilies were mourning, that there should be
demand for a concerted arrangement for
decorating the graves This is how Memorial
Day as institution came into being The
Grand Army of the Republic took first for
NAL notice Of 1t in 1868, only three years
after the close of the war And In the North
1t soon became Grand Army function. The
survivors assumed the duty of keeping green
the graves of the fallen. Then the State
Legislatures were asked to make the 3Oth of
May a holiday. And 1t is now holiday In
all the States except Florida, Georgia, Lou
isiana, Mississippi North Carolina, South
Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.
But Time heals all wounds. The heartrend-
ing grief of the years following the war,
when mothers could not be reconciled to the |
loss of their sons nor widows to their widow |
hood, has been spent. The mothers, alas, are |
dead. There cannot be more than score
of yet alive whose sons were in the |
armies of the Civil War, and such of them |
as have survived are old that instead Of |
grieving over the partings of the past they
are yearning for the reunions of the future
and regretting that they are delayed so long
The nation still honors its heroic dead but 1t
has ceased to mourn them.
A Day for Outdoor Sports
The transformation in the character of
Memorial Day from a time of funeral OBJ
servance to day for outdoor sports and
the formal Inauguration of the season OF
summer amusements Is human and in ac-
cordance with historic precedent. The saints
days of the church, the anniversaries Of the
martyrdom of the holy, are not times of
mourning, but of rejoicing over the transla-
tion of a human soul from the troubles of
this world to the peace of the next. So the
day has become, not a memorial of the
grave, but sort of a spring festival cele-
bration of the awakening of the world into a
new lie. II lHlBnI De Cdlleu u KIM OF secular
Easter so far as it is a popular holiday
The graves of the soldiers are no longer
decorated the day unless it be in the
smaller communities. In all the larger cities
the preceding Sunday is devoted to the task
and committees of the different Grand Army
posts visit the cemeteries where their COM
rades are buried, and lay upon the graves
the symbolic flowers The day itself is given
up to other occupations. In some communi-
ties there Is still parade, with patriotic
exercises in the cemeteries. But the festival
character of the time is more prominent than
it's memorial aspect.
The War Is History
The has been over for so years It is
a historic event. and not memory to every
man of 55 and even of 60. Two generations
have come upon the stage since the peace
Of Appomattox. The Union and Confederate
fraternize as though they had not
fought, There is hardly an unreconstructed
left, and there is certainly no
Northerner who would ever think of hanging 4
Ieff Davis on sour apple tree, as they all
to do at one time We cannot under {
stand the feeling of the nation 40 or even 30 9
years ago The old men remember It, but
he younger men have to read of It in the
histories They know the purpose of Memo {
ial Day but it is no easier for them to
MOURN for the dead OF half a century ago I
han to weep at the tomb of Washington or
efors the monument to Lincoln I
When one thinks of the slaughter going on :
n Europe at present, and reads the reports
I battles and the descriptions OF the scenes
a the hospitals, and sees In the illustrated 4
nj Of fba Frgs