31 May 1917. The New York Times

Non-fiction

Project 1917 is a series of events that took place a hundred years ago as described by those involved. It is composed only of diaries, letters, memoirs, newspapers and other documents

The New York Times

The Public School Athletic League celebrated Memorial Day with a parade of fully 50,000 boys, who represented the best physical specimens of young American manhood that the schools of this city have been able to turn out. It was a demonstration for preparedness, and Governor Whitman, who reviewed the procession, declared it to be one of the most inspiring spectacles of its kind that he had ever witnessed.

For nearly five hours the lithe and muscular youths, who had won many battles on the athletic fields, marched down Fifth Avenue with a steady, relentless tramp, completely imbued with patriotic enthusiasm and apparently ready if they had been so ordered by Grand Marshal Gustavus T. Kirby to march right on to France.

The big moment in the parade occurred when the head of the column reached Fifty-seventh Street and the entire procession came to a halt. They had been marching in files of sixteen abreast, but at a signal from the marshal the whole column divided in the centre, one-half swinging to the left and the other half to the right. Both columns then turned and faced each other, leaving a lane in the centre through which the reviewing officers, including Governor Whitman, Mayor Mitchel, members of the Board of Education, and Grand Army veterans of the Lafayette Post made their tour of inspection all the way from Fifty-seventh Street to Washington Square. As the machines carrying the officials came abreast of the boys, the doffed their hats and set up a great ‘hurrah’, which rolled down the whole line of march in an ever-increasing wave of cheers.

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+16

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