Independence Day celebrations in 1926
Celebrating the 150th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.
Past 50 years, 1876-1926
Population: 106 million, up from 31.4 million in 1860. States: 48, of which the most recent was Arizona. The population grew due to mass immigration, but also due to a sharply declining mortality rate. Clean water meant fewer deaths from diseases such as cholera, typhus, and diphtheria; asepsis meant fewer deaths from infection.
In 1893, the US celebrated the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s first voyage to the Americas with the spectacular Columbian Exposition in Chicago (see here).
The Spanish-American War (1898) showed that the US could be a power on the world stage, but most Americans weren’t interested in fighting international wars.
American engineers oversaw completion of the Panama Canal in 1914, dramatically reducing the sailing time from the east to the west coast of the US.
POTUS Wilson dragged the US into WW1 in 1917. The income tax, authorized by a constitutional amendment in 1913, helped pay for the war. In 1917-1918, 116,516 Americans died, mostly young men. Immediately afterwards, an estimated 675,000 Americans died of the Spanish flu (1918-1920); half the deaths were among healthy young people ages 20-40.
In the late 19th and early 20th c., business and industry grew dramatically through the efforts of men such as Rockefeller, Carnegie, Morgan, and Vanderbilt. Reaction came in the form of the Progressive movement, which led to anti-trust laws (beginning in 1890), a corporate income tax (1909), and increasing government regulation of business. But the Roaring Twenties saw economic prosperity that lasted until 1929 - several years past the 150th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.
In Russia, massive discontent arose at the beginning of the 20th century, eventually leading to the abdication of the tsar in 1917. From 1917 to 1922, civil war raged among revolutionaries. In the end, Lenin and the Bolsheviks / Communists took over the government and instituted near-complete control of industry, trade, banking, and agriculture. In the US, the first Red Scare broke out immediately after WW1, from fear that Bolsheviks, communists, socialists, and anarchists would infiltrate the nation. That fear was responsible in part for legislation that sharply curtailed mass immigration from southern and eastern Europe. See this post.
Prohibition was passed in 1919 and women gained the vote in 1920, both by constitutional amendments.
Memorable words: Calvin Coolidge
President Coolidge delivered this speech on 7/4/1926 at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, where the nation was celebrating with a six-month Sesquicentennial Exposition. The speech (which was probably broadcast by radio) is notable because Coolidge praised the Declaration as the result of a majority of Americans (not violent overthrow of government), warned against “pagan materialism”, and emphasized the sermons and writings of colonial clergymen as foundations of the Declaration. I suspect all that was a reaction to the bloody revolution and civil war in Russia … Read his comments and see what you think. Full text here (4,400 words).
Although a century and a half measured in comparison with the length of human experience is but a short time, yet measured in the life of governments and nations it ranks as a very respectable period. Certainly enough time has elapsed to demonstrate with a great deal of thoroughness the value of our institutions and their dependability as rules for the regulation of human conduct and the advancement of civilization. They have been in existence long enough to become very well seasoned. They have met, and met successfully, the test of experience.
It is not so much, then, for the purpose of undertaking to proclaim new theories and principles that this annual celebration is maintained, but rather to reaffirm and reestablish those old theories and principles which time and the unerring logic of events have demonstrated to be sound. Amid all the clash of conflicting interests, amid all the welter of partisan politics, every American can turn for solace and consolation to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States with the assurance and confidence that those two great charters of freedom and justice remain firm and unshaken. Whatever perils appear, whatever dangers threaten, the Nation remains secure in the knowledge that the ultimate application of the law of the land will provide an adequate defense and protection. …
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This obedience of the delegates [of the Second Continental Congress] to the wishes of their constituents, which in some cases caused them to modify their previous positions, is a matter of great significance. It reveals an orderly process of government in the first place; but more than that, it demonstrates that the Declaration of Independence was the result of the seasoned and deliberate thought of the dominant portion of the people of the Colonies. Adopted after long discussion and as the result of the duly authorized expression of the preponderance of public opinion, it did not partake of dark intrigue or hidden conspiracy. It was well advised. It had about it nothing of the lawless and disordered nature of a riotous insurrection. It was maintained on a plane which rises above the ordinary conception of rebellion. It was in no sense a radical movement but took on the dignity of a resistance to illegal usurpations. It was conservative and represented the action of the colonists to maintain their constitutional rights which from time immemorial had been guaranteed to them under the law of the land. …
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The great apostle of this movement [that authority is based on the consent of the people] was the Rev. John Wise, of Massachusetts. He was one of the leaders of the revolt against the royal governor Andros in 1687, for which he suffered imprisonment. He was a liberal in ecclesiastical controversies. He appears to have been familiar with the writings of the political scientist, Samuel Pufendorf, who was born in Saxony in 1632. Wise published a treatise entitled "The Church's Quarrel Espoused" in 1710, which was amplified in another publication in 1717. In it he dealt with the principles of civil government. His works were reprinted in 1772 and have been declared to have been nothing less than a textbook of liberty for our Revolutionary fathers. …
No one can examine this record and escape the conclusion that in the great outline of its principles the Declaration was the result of the religious teachings of the preceding period. The profound philosophy which Jonathan Edwards applied to theology, the popular preaching of George Whitefield, had aroused the thought and stirred the people of the Colonies in preparation for this great event. No doubt the speculations which had been going on in England [notably John Locke], and especially on the Continent [notably Rousseau], lent their influence to the general sentiment of the times. Of course, the world is always influenced by all the experience and all the thought of the past. But when we come to a contemplation of the immediate conception of the principles of human relationship which went into the Declaration of Independence we are not required to extend our search beyond our own shores. They are found in the texts, the sermons, and the writings of the early colonial clergy who were earnestly undertaking to instruct their congregations in the great mystery of how to live. They preached equality because they believed in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. They justified freedom by the text that we are all created in the divine image, all partakers of the divine spirit. …
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Governments do not make ideals, but ideals make governments. This is both historically and logically true. Of course the government can help to sustain ideals and can create institutions through which they can be the better observed, but their source by their very nature is in the people. The people have to bear their own responsibilities. There is no method by which that burden can be shifted to the government. It is not the enactment, but the observance of laws, that creates the character of a nation.
Under a system of popular government there will always be those who will seek for political preferment by clamoring for reform. While there is very little of this which is not sincere, there is a large portion that is not well informed. In my opinion very little of just criticism can attach to the theories and principles of our institutions. …
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No other theory is adequate to explain or comprehend the Declaration of Independence. It is the product of the spiritual insight of the people. We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren scepter in our grasp. If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it. We must not sink into a pagan materialism. We must cultivate the reverence which they had for the things that are holy. We must follow the spiritual and moral leadership which they showed. We must keep replenished, that they may glow with a more compelling flame, the altar fires before which they worshiped.
Tomorrow: celebrations of the bicentennial of the Declaration of Independence, 1976.