by Paul R. Spitzzeri
Today, amid the military parade in the nation’s capital, “No Kings” protests throughout the country, protests and National Guard and Marines deployments in our region, and the shooting of Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota, is Flag Day and the National Flag Foundation, stating that “Old Glory is the thread the binds us all together,” observes that,
The American flag not only acts as a symbol of our great nation’s freedom, but it is a representation of our country’s citizens and its history.
The history of Flag Day, the organization notes, includes various elements, including a Hartford, Connecticut man who urged the flying of the colors on this day in 1861 just after the start of the Civil War, which tested the survival of our democracy as no other period has to date. Nearly a quarter century later, a teacher in Fredonia, Wisconsin had his students mark a “Flag Birthday” while he later pushed for a flag holiday through a magazine he edited.
Another teacher, this time in New York City, had his kindergarten pupils hold a flag day commemoration in 1889, leading the Empire State’s Board of Education to adopt the idea. A Sons of the American Revolution historian in Philadelphia promoted the concept and, in 1893, children from schools gathered at Independence Square for an event.
The next year, the American Flag Association instituted a large public school Flag Day celebration at Chicago, at which, it was reported, some 300,000 children participated. Here in Los Angeles, the first located mention of Flag Day was in the Los Angeles Herald of 11 June 1894, with the paper citing a Washington, D.C. report that the board of the Daughters of the American Revolution passed a resolution that members observe 14 June as Flag Day and do so by “displaying the national emblem from their homes.”
Amid a movement for a memorial to Francis Scott Key, who wrote the lyrics for the national anthem, the Los Angeles Times commented that, “June 14 is ‘Flag Day’ in the public schools throughout the nation” and students were asked to make contributions to the memorial, which was dedicated in 1898.
Separately, the paper reported from the Associated Press that celebrations were held in Chicago, Denver and Philadelphia and it was remarked that “‘Flag Day,’ inaugurated one year ago by the American Flag Day Association [sic] as a holiday, was observed today by the public schools. There were no reports of local commemorations, however.
Despite the lack of organized events here our area, the promotion of Flag Day was amplified in 1896. The newly launched Los Angeles Record informed readers that, “if you have a flag you want to fly it on Sunday” and noted that it was the 119th anniversary of its adoption as the nation’s official emblem.
Notably, the paper observed the Hartford, Connecticut effort of nearly 35 years prior (it reported the name of the promoter differently and said it was 1862), but added the same figure, Jonathan Morris of the Sons of the American Revolution was able to get a Flag Day petition adopted in 1890 and that he should be credited for the holiday.
The Record of 15 June published a piece titled “Flag Day—A Story of the Forties,” in which it began by observing that “while the event was not observed in this city, a number of patriotic societies in other places held some ceremonies in honor of the day.” The paper then brought in an aspect of California history from a half-century before during the Mexican-American War, commenting,
The first American flag brought into this State was decidedly improvised and characteristic of the troublesome times accompanying the conquest of California in 1846. It was made by Miss Refugio A. Bandini, and there are still living several of her children, who helped the lady perform this patriotic service for the State.
The article noted that Señora Bandini’s husband, Juan, born in Peru, supported the American invasion of California and was nearly killed by Mexicans who learned of this. Moreover, it said, Navy Commodore Robert F. Stockton ordered the transport of Doña Refugio and two daughters, still living in Los Angeles, and three sons from Baja California, where the family resided, to San Diego.
The account went on that, lacking a flag, “which deficit would have materially interfered with their progress into the State,” Señora Bandini “was equal to the emergency” and, taking her son Juan, Jr.’s blue undershirt, “made the ground for the stars,” while she “sacrificed several of the red silk cushions of her vehicle and alternated these with stripes from her linen petticoat.” With Doña Refugio having fashioned the American emblem, “the column marched forward, bearing the impromptu flag into the State of California and down to history.”
A San Diego Historical Society publication from nearly fifty years ago had a somewhat different interpretation, recording that “three daughters are even credited with making the first American flag that was raised in the Old Town Plaza on July 29, 1846,” with one of the siblings perhaps being Arcadia, later the wife of Los Angeles merchant and landowner, Abel Stearns, and then Robert S. Baker, and who was considerably wealthy a half-century after that flag raising. It should also be noted that the Bear Flag from a revolt at Sonoma and which was the precursor of our state flag was flown at the northern town’s plaza on 14 June 1846.
For the 1896 presidential election, a fall Flag Day was proposed for 24 October, with the preceding day’s Times, a Republican sheet sedulously supporting winner William McKinley, imploring its readers to “hang out ‘Old Glory’ above every doorway, every window, and let its colors fly from every staff in the land on that day, and God save the republic!”
The following day, it continued its impassioned plea to have the flag’s “beautiful colors emblazon the porticoes of every home and its brilliant stars gleam above the heads of the multitudes.” Claiming that this was patriotism, not partisanship, though it certainly was the latter, the paper exhorted that that anyone supporting equal rights, free speech and fair opportunities should display the flag “as the rainbow of promise of peace and prosperity to the land we love.”
There was, however, a movement by McKinley’s campaign manager, Mark Hanna, to have a Flag Day on Halloween as part of a strategy that included a “front porch” promotion in which the Cleveland multi-millionaire paid for voters shipped to McKinley’s Ohio home by train to meet the G.O.P. candidate.
The Times of 2 November claimed that “Old Glory flew from the staffs of patriotic citizens” and “taught many a lesson to young voters,” while the Record, which supported Democrat William Jennings Bryan, known for his famous “Cross of Gold” speech during the campaign, insisted that “Mark Hanna’s order that the American people exhibit the American flag today does not seem to have been generally observed.”
Notably, nothing could be found in the local press in 1897 regarding any June Flag Day commemorations, but the declaration of war on 25 April 1898 by the United States against Spain cast Flag Day in an entirely enhanced light. The Record in an editorial in its 14 June 1898 edition, wrote that “it is most appropriate that in every way, without formal ceremony, public manifestation be made of the zeal and loyalty with which the banner is loved by every home in the nation.” It added,
This sentiment is well reflected in Los Angeles, for in addition to the display of flags, emblems and bunting drawn forth by the war spirit, thousands have been added today, so that every mill, factory and shop, homeplace, building and spire, reflects the broad stripes and bright stars of the banner of a united nation.
The American flag stands for more today, at home and abroad, than at any other time in the history of its people. A war is waging, in which the nation is a consolidated one, irrespective of party or sectional lines, placing its standards upon other lands in the name of liberty, justice and right.
What obviously stands out in this statement is the unity juxtaposed to the tearing apart of the national fabric more than three decades before during the Civil War, as well as the justification of empire building, amid European colonization throughout Africa and Asia, on those propounded principles of “liberty, justice and right.”
The Los Angeles Herald of the 11th specifically commented that the California Society of the Sons of the American Revolution passed a resolution “to request the clergy, press and educational institutions” in the Golden State to make the 121st anniversary of the flag “the subject of discussion” on Sunday the 12th or Tuesday the 14th, with the latter being when “everybody should hang out the stars and stripes.”
It added that “the patriotic display of the American flag has been noticeably increased by the war with Spain and it will require little extra effort to make the occasion general” on the 14th. The paper also remarked that “there is no good reason why the flags should be taken in when Flag Day is over,” while it concluded,
There is no need to preach a sermon nor deliver a homily on the American flag at this time, when a reunited country is fighting the battles of the oppressed beneath its folds. Love for Old Glory may have been latent; the sentiment of patriotism may have lain fallow for a time, so far as outward expression is concerned, but it was there, only needing an awakening. And what gallant deeds have been performed, what heroism has been displayed beneath it by American citizens since a foreign nation forced it into action!
Aside from the fact that the outbreak of the Spanish-American War was based on complex factors far beyond Spain forcing the United States to act, the reference to a “reunited country” some three decades after the Civil War is notable, as was the observation that patriotism was dormant and required a new boost.
It is worth noting that some commentators made something of a similar point about the proposition that the First Gulf War (Operation Desert Storm) was something of a vindication after the Vietnam War—though the Second Gulf (Iraq) War has to be considered as part of the assessment. It is also notable that there was a National Victory Celebration on 8 June 1991 to mark the end of the First Gulf War and this was the last military parade in our country prior to today.
As per usual, the Times outdid its rivals in editorializing about Flag Day and its connection to the Spanish-American War, noting that, since the conflict burst forth, “the Stars and Stripes have been liberally displayed throughout the Union . . . but on this day, of all others, it should be flung to the breeze with lavish prodigality.”
Asserting that “our country is engaged in the most unselfish war of history,” the paper proclaimed that the flying of the colors “in the midst of a patriotic war” was such that it “should be celebrated with more than ordinary enthusiasm, by the most lavish display of the Stars and Stripes ever witnessed.”
The paper reported that the American Flag Association, formally organized in February and composed of members of “patriotic organizations,” looked “to secure national legislation for the protection of the flag from degrading and desecrating uses.” This effort introduced in Congress in 1898 did not succeed and a flag protection act passed by it 70 years later during the Vietnam War and laws that followed in 48 states were stuck down by the Supreme Court in 1989. A flag desecration amendment has been sought for the last thirty years, though unsuccessfully to date.
Moreover, a quote from the Association averred that “the flag now has a new and expanded meaning” because of the war and it added that the current conflict “has forced to fruition the results of our civil war.” Sectionalism was, it claimed, was being erased and Americans were united in supporting in planting the flag in lands where people sought freedom after 350 years of Spanish oppression.
The Association continued that “the renaissance of self-respect is asserting itself, and the people are venturing to look up to God in confident supplication for the blessing that he always bestows upon the hearts and lives of men who dare to defend the oppressed.” One wonders how such a statement would be squared with the experiences of Black Americans in the Jim Crow South, our nation’s indigenous people just eight years after Wounded Knee, or Asians subjected to rampant bias and discrimination, among others, here at home.
Still, the Flag organization’s purple prose rose higher in insisting that the war was to bring freedom to millions of oppressed Cubans and Filipinos and “thus suddenly the Stars and Stripes took on new beauty for friendly eyes and new terror for the foes of liberty.” The Association asked all American to fly the colors on Flag Day but also highlighted ceremonies at private and public schools with the hope that the future leaders of the 20th century “will be a generation schooled in patriotism.”
More bursts of fervor were reflected in the statement that “the sun of heaven now greets the stars of hope in liberty’s banner” as “a blow from the strong right hand of this nation” against Spain and its “cruel oppressor’s hand” would free the European nation “of her richest colony” and set free “millions of her victims on the other side of the world.” While it was concluded that “kinship in suffering and in hope makes all the race neighbors,” the next half-century of the history of the Philipines and sixty years in Cuba revealed a far different reality than the ideals espoused amid the effusion of wartime patriotism.
The Times ended with its affirmation of those expressions,
All of which will be indorsed to the fullest extent by patriotic citizens in every part of the country. Let the banner of stars kiss the breezes from every flagstaff in North and South, in East and West, from ocean to ocean, from lakes to gulf, on this glorious anniversary of the birth of the banner we love.
As the National Flag Foundation states, the flag’s colors of red, white and blue “represent characteristics of the American people throughout history, across the nation.” These elements are justly celebrated with such fundamental rights as freedom of speech, religion, assembly, due process and others and the history of our country is replete with landmarks of how our liberties are established and made manifest.
There are also times in which the expression of our freedoms, liberties and rights are challenged and contested and our system of three, co-equal branches of government, the balance of federal and state authority and the involvement of citizens, no matter who they are, are the bulwark of the maintenance of our fragile and vulnerable democracy. On this Flag Day, the display of our colors is an expression of the importance of high ideals tempered with the sober reflection that we have to continue to work vigorously at upholding the values the American Flag embodies in a large, complex, and highly diverse society.
Well done, Paul, well done.
Jim Bueche
Thanks, Jim for the comment, it is appreciated.
As noted in the post, the American Flag Association organized a public gathering in Chicago in 1894, reportedly involving 300,000 public school children in celebration. While the event was undoubtedly meaningful, the numbers appear somewhat exaggerated.
Chicago’s population in the 1890s was about 1.2 million, and the American average life expectancy at the time was about 48. Assuming an even age distribution, children aged 6 to 18 would make up roughly 25% of the population. That would mean nearly every school-aged child in the entire city, and possibly beyond, would have had to attend. Given the limited public transportation infrastructure of the era, such a massive turnout seems highly questionable.
While reading this post, an image came to mind: a vivid scene of American flags flying proudly on the front lawn of every home. From a distance, hundreds of flags fluttered in unison, moving rhythmically like ocean waves rolling forward, one after another. I told myself that I would soon order a full-sized flag and pole. I may have missed Flag Day, but I can still do this in time for the Fourth of July.
Hi Larry, interesting point, though perhaps school children came from beyond the city, and certainly relevant regarding today’s events and what claims of crowd sizes will be for the military parade in Washington and the nationwide “No Kings” protests.
Thanks, Larry. At the Homestead, we have flags, courtesy of the Industry Hills Rotary Club, displayed in the heart-shaped planter outside El Campo Santo Cemetery between Memorial Day and Independence Day.