LIMA — It was a great day for a parade. At precisely 1:35 p.m., under a nearly cloudless sky on what Lima’s Republican-Gazette called a “perfect June day,” Col. Albert E. Gale, ordered thousands to begin the march southward on Main Street. Lima’s “great patriotic demonstration” had begun.
Across the country on that same Saturday in early June 100 years ago, similar “preparedness” parades were kicking off in cities large and small. Toledo, Fort Wayne and countless other cities joined in. Two hundred thousand marched in Chicago.
The preparedness movement, which called for a strengthening of the U.S. military to match the threat of Germany, was launched after the outbreak of World War I in August 1914 and was championed by, among others, former President Teddy Roosevelt, who seldom saw a war he didn’t want the U.S. involved in.
The United States, however, was far from united on World War I in 1914. Most Americans, though personally sympathetic to Britain, France and their allies in the war with Germany, wanted the country to stay out of the conflict. So did President Woodrow Wilson and, not surprisingly, most Americans of German ancestry.
Public opinion as well as Wilson’s mind began to change in the spring of 1915 thanks in large part to Germany, which displayed an uncanny ability to generate ill will throughout the war. On May 7, 1915, the British ship RMS Lusitania bound from New York to Liverpool crossed paths with German submarine U-20 off the coast of Ireland and more than 1,100 souls perished. One hundred and 14 of them were Americans.
By the spring of 1916, as the one year anniversary of the sinking of the Lusitania approached and Germany continued its aggressive submarine campaign, preparedness parades began to pop up across the country. Wilson himself would march in one.
All of which left Lima’s German-American community walking on eggshells. On April 21, 1916, the Lima Times-Democrat reported on a public meeting of German-American residents. “We cherish a feeling of devotion toward Germany,” said Adolph Weixelbaum, who had once published a German language newspaper, the Courier, in Lima, “but we are loyal to the land of our adoption. If our utterances should be misconstrued our motives would be questioned, and the suspicion of being spies and agents of Germany would create a popular outburst under which we could not help but suffer.”
It was probably already too late. Roosevelt was touring the country beating the drum for preparedness and denigrating “hyphenated Americans.” On May 12, 1916, the Times-Democrat reported, “one of the greatest processions ever assembled for the promotion of an idea” had marched in a preparedness parade in New York.
“Is Lima for Preparedness?,” the Republican-Gazette asked a week after the New York demonstration. “She was invited yesterday (May 17, 1916) to join in a great nationwide demonstration for preparedness. Mayor (Bailis) Simpson announced that if there was sufficient interest, there would be a Preparedness Parade modeled after the great demonstration in New York a few days ago. A meager canvass of the situation last night indicated that there is a good chance for the parade,” the Republican-Gazette, a relentless advocate for preparedness, reported.
Lima, according to the Republican-Gazette was indeed for preparedness. “The Spirit of ’76 still lives,” the newspaper wrote May 20, 1916. “Patriotism in Lima is not dead. Ready and eager response in the movement to have Lima participate in a great preparedness parade June 3 simultaneously with Chicago, Toledo, Fort Wayne and 50 other cities in the middle west has decided Lima’s stand.” Mayor Simpson, the newspaper added, had appointed a committee, including Col. Gale, to organize the parade and he had wired Lima’s response to a general committee in Chicago which was in charge of plans for the Midwest.
“Ten thousand marchers swinging up Main Street, 10,000 American flags fluttering in the breeze, 20,000 feet keeping time to the strains of ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ — that is what Lima’s patriotic Preparedness Parade should be according to plans laid by the mayor’s committee in charge last night,” the Republican-Gazette enthused May 24, 1916. “In a hundred other cities in the United States, scattered over more than 30 states, similar scenes will be enacted at the same time. More than 1,750,000 Americans are expected to demonstrate to the world that June afternoon that patriotism has not been forgotten in this country and that the people who live under the American flag are, above all else, Americans.”
On May 26, 1916, as Memorial Day loomed, the Times- Democrat drew a parallel between the country’s preparedness in 1861 and 1916, suggesting readers speak with one of the Civil War veterans who annually turned out for the Memorial Day parade. “Get him to tell, If he was in one of those battles won by the South, how his comrades were shot down by his side, sacrificed to the blindness of Northern statesmen who were for peace at any price and turned the other cheek.” As he would several days later at the Preparedness Parade, Col. Gale, a Spanish-American War veteran, served as grand marshal for Lima’s Memorial Day parade on May 30, 1916.
That same day, the Republican-Gazette reported final plans for the Preparedness Parade, noting Mayor Simpson as well as the mayors of surrounding towns would review the parade from a stand in the Public Square. “The parade is to be divided into 10 divisions which will form on Wayne Street and side streets leading from it. The line of march will be from Wayne south on Main to Vine then countermarch back Main Street to North, west on North to West, and there disband. It was decided to countermarch so that everyone might be in the parade and at the same time see all of it.”
On June 3, 1916, while the front pages of the city’s newspapers were devoted to reporting a great battle in the North Sea between the British and German fleets, Lima marched for preparedness. “Lima awakened yesterday to the realization that the nation’s flag holds a place pre-eminent in the hearts of her citizens,” the Republican-Gazette wrote the following day. “Twenty thousand American flags were on display in honor of the greatest popular patriotic demonstration this part of northwestern Ohio ever witnessed.” The newspaper estimated more than 20,000 people lined the parade route to watch the 6,000 marchers.
The highlights of the parade, according to the newspaper, were “two great flags, 13 by 19 feet in size” which were “greeted with cheers all along the line of march.” One of the flags, carried by a “delegation of small boys” from St. John’s school “wearing red, white and blue caps,” was judged one of the best in the parade.
The afternoon Times-Democrat reported June 3 that “at a signal from Grand Marshal A.E. Gale, all of the bands in the parade played the patriotic ballad ‘America.’ All those in the parade and those watching the line of march joined in one mighty chorus.”
Even as the parades were winding through the streets of America’s cities, Congress passed the National Defense Act authorizing an enormous increase in the armed forces. On April 2, 1917, President Wilson asked Congress to declare war on Germany.
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