Background: An Uneasy Hicksville
A century later, one thinks that the townspeople would have done everything possible to make that year's parade a dignified and fitting experience for the families of the deceased soldiers. One is wrong to think that.
Why? Imagine an unsettled community, in which everything seemed to be changing. A society characterized by rivalries and factionalism. One in which responsible people defied laws, confronted police, and rioted. One in which nominally patriotic organizations bullied immigrants, and persecuted people because of their race and religious beliefs. One in which working people feared the loss of their livelihoods. A village in the throes of an influenza pandemic, which its government refused to acknowledge.
This was Hicksville in 1919, and when the moment was right, the community's loss of three young soldiers, and the pain which their families still felt, didn't count for much. Let's look at the reasons why so many people were on edge that day.
Note: Some readers of Ancient Hixtory will find portions of this Background section familiar. Appendices to this article provide links to some further information about what is said here. Also, please note that the author's comments below about German-Americans are not colored by personal considerations; my own ancestry is Lithuanian-Polish, and my wife's is Ukrainian-Czech.
*
Not the Same Village Anymore
A decade ago, the East River railroad tunnels had opened Long Island to city dwellers, and new people with new ethnicities had begun settling in Hicksville. The size of the school on Nicholai Street had been effectively doubled around that time, but the village had since grown so much that the school was again out of room. Some grades had resorted to split-sessions.
It was clear that the village's largely German values and traditions were being overshadowed by a mix of new ones. German-Americans also saw that the anti-German feelings of the war years were slow to recede. Other groups felt threatened, too, for Hicksville 's tolerance was diminishing. When the Reconstruction-era fable of the "noble" Ku Klux Klan was revived in America, it found ready acceptance on Long Island. Perhaps that was due to the northward migration of some Southern whites in the early years of the century, perhaps not. For whatever reason, hatred of blacks, Jews, Catholics, and immigrants in general now was in fashion.
It would take only a few more years for the Board of Education to openly welcome the Ku Klux Klan into the auditorium of Hicksville's new junior/senior high school:
Other, more subtle, "patriotic" organizations shared some values with the Klan, primarily opposition to immigrants. As their members quietly networked their way up the social ladder, their attitudes and policies weighed heavily on many newcomers to the village.
*
Feeling Helpless
The combination of skyrocketing land prices (due to ever-growing demand for new commuter homes) and an unstoppable blight that ruined crops, made clear that Hicksville's agricultural base would not endure. Someday (no one could predict just when) it would not be possible to survive in Hicksville by owning a farm, by working on one, by supplying one, or by selling the produce from one - because there would be no more farms. What would people do then?
There also was a communal sense of lost autonomy. Albany had decided to replace local police in many villages, including Hicksville. Resistance was futile, but there had been resentment, which culminated in a riotous encounter between two troopers and a half-drunken mob.
New York Herald, January 20, 1918
Prohibition - a Federal initiative which would arrive with the New Year - was another problem beyond the community's control. Individual Hicksvillians stood on both sides of the issue, but the village itself, insofar as it could have a single voice, opposed it.
Hicksville's hotels were important, socially and economically. Even without Prohibition, their future looked challenging. As Nassau County "suburbified," acreage of nearby undeveloped land would keep shrinking; game and other wildlife would have to move east. Parties of hunters and sleigh riders from the City would no longer choose Hicksville as their base. Some of the local hotels might survive, in scaled-down form, offering banquet space for local events, and plenty of German cuisine and hospitality, complete with beer. People thought that Prohibition would kill the hotels, and with them, the last public vestiges of the German immigrants who had made Hicksville thrive for the first time.
The worst reason for the villagers to feel helpless was one felt very personally. That spring, a new wave of influenza hit. Despite the efforts of the U.S. government to censor news of it, people who read the Daily Eagle saw the frightening statistics of what was happening in Brooklyn, and that news squared with what was happening nearby. When the flu struck a family, the young and most fit were even more likely to die than the frail and elderly. Everyone knew what was going on, but absolutely no one knew what to do about it, other than to clench one's teeth and carry on.
***
