Things Unravel on Memorial Day
The day happened to coincide with the regular publication date for the weekly Long-Islander. In that morning's issue, the paper again printed the day's program, per the POSAWHC (in case you've forgotten, that's the acronym for the Patriotic Sons' committee).
Huntington Long-Islander, May 30, 1919
This program seemed fine when people saw it, but few
readers considered its incendiary possibilities.
All the community's groups were invited to march, and they would carry (as groups still do in parades today) large identifying banners. What if two adjacent groups hated each other? Imagine what might happen today if, say, the Jewish Defense League group stood waiting in line directly in front of the KKK klavern (i.e., local chapter).
Things were not quite that bad, but the Prohibitionist WCTU women soon were engaged in, shall we say, a lively discussion with some presumably hard-drinking firemen (stationed at the rear of the parade, the Fire Department probably was mustering just behind the women). Dr. Curtis tried to quell the dispute. The firemen proposed that peace would be restored if the WCTU women did not carry their banner in the parade, and instead carried an American flag. The women refused, likely pointing out that every other group in the parade was displaying its own banner.
The Hicksville Band, hired in advance for the parade, perhaps had been warned of trouble, for the night before, it had withdrawn from the parade, leaving POSA no time in which to book a replacement. Fire Chief Braun now withdrew all his men from the parade - despite the late Cpl. Wheeler's having been one his firemen! Remarkably, the majority of the newly-returned veterans also withdrew from the parade that was meant to honor their fallen brethren.
In a very few minutes, more than half the intended participants had decided that marching to honor dead veterans mattered less than exhibiting their own anger - anger at something that was immutable, and that had been decided not in Hicksville, but in Washington D.C.
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The Central Park (i.e., Bethpage) Fife and Drum Corps would still march, but it had been scheduled to start late in the parade, and it would not arrive for at least an hour. Uneasy during the wait, some marchers decided to leave the parade and head off to the ceremony site. They would have been uncomfortable, for the dropout firemen and veterans were nearby, and they intended to walk - but not march - alongside the parade as it went. People likely expected that those who marched in the parade would be heckled along the way.
The next edition of the Long-Islander reported that the parade ultimately consisted only of the Fife and Drum Corps, the Squad of Honor, a handful of the men who had recently returned from service, and many children. Although it did not mention the village organizations, the stalwart women of the WCTU must have marched as well - for if they had withdrawn, the firemen would have rejoined the parade. The coverage was both embarrassed and embarrassing. What had happened was an "unfortunate incident" that had "marred" the day's solemn observance. No words scolded those who had instigated the purposeless walkout, or those had who joined it. It included a laughable letter from the POSAWHC, which stated that it had met its objectives (i.e., it maintained that there had been a parade - though many villagers would have disagreed about that - and ceremonies). Many regrets were expressed, but no one assumed, or was burdened with, responsibility. No apology was offered to the mourning families, or to the other villagers who had done their best to respect the dead.
That Memorial Day observation was to be the closest that those three men's families expected to ever get to funerals for their sons, and some hotheads did all they could to hijack it, just to grab some attention.
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