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4. Defining Americanism in the Shadow of Reaction: May Day and the Cultural Politics of Urban Celebrations, 1917–1935
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105 4 Defining Americanism in the Shadow of Reaction May Day and the Cultural Politics of Urban Celebrations, 1917–1935 In 1925, the Workers (Communist) Party (W(C)P) and its allied labor unions in New York held their May Day meeting at the city’s Metropolitan Opera House. As the New York Times reported, that day “Reds who cheered for Soviet Russia and a dictatorship of the proletariat replaced those who ordinarily occupy the boxes in the ‘diamond horseshoe .’”1 The choice of venue may have been intended to evoke this sense of carnival: to symbolize the world turned upside down in proletarian revolution . Yet, the radical display came as a surprise to the management of the Opera House, who thought the hall had been rented for a musical and educational program, not a political rally. Nathan Franko, the orchestra ’s conductor, also expressed his dismay over the communist program. In what the New York Times described as a bitter backstage quarrel with the event’s organizers, Franko at first refused to begin the program. He argued that as “a native-born American,” he would “not have anything to do with this meeting unless the national anthem is played first.”2 After party and union leaders finally agreed to his demand, Franko led his orchestra in “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The assembled crowd stood in silence. The Freiheit Chorus, made up of seventy-five girls and fifty boys, did not sing along either. Just as Franko was determined to demonstrate his brand of patriotic Americanism, so, too, were the crowd and chorus firm in displaying their political radicalism. Only when the orchestra began “The Internationale” did they sing out and cheer. Franko then cut the prepared number of classical pieces that were to follow from ten to two. He and his musicians “left the stage before the revolutionary speeches were made.”3 106 Defining Americanism in the Shadow of Reaction About a thousand miles away in Chicago on that same evening of May 1, 1925, more than 2,000 people crowded into the city’s Temple Hall for the annual Workers (Communist) Party’s May Day celebration. Once the majority of the crowd had made its way into the hall, the meeting opened with the singing of “The Internationale.” A contingent from the party’s Junior Section of the Young Workers League, made up of young boys and girls ranging in age from seven to fourteen, marched up the center aisle and joined their adult comrades in song. Wearing red neckerchiefs and carrying red banners, the Juniors walked onstage and continued to lead the assembly in revolutionary hymns, helping to set the tone for the fiery speeches that were to follow.4 Albert Galatsky, a twelve-year-old boy, delivered the first address of the evening. Speaking about himself and his fellow Juniors, he declared that they represented “more than the children of the working class”; that they were “the Communist children of the working class” who were prepared to join with workers in Europe “in the struggle for the overthrow of capitalism .” Galatsky then noted how, despite the laws against child labor in Illinois, many youngsters still found it necessary to work to survive, including newsboys, boot blacks, and store clerks who were in the hall with them that night. The young communist declared that because of their daily struggles under capitalism, these children were committed to supporting the establishment of workers’ protections like those instituted in Soviet Russia. Galatsky brought the cheering audience to its feet.5 The confrontation that took place at the Metropolitan Opera and the colorful display that party youth presented at Chicago’s Temple Hall demonstrate three notable characteristics of May Day during the politically chilly 1920s, when labor and the left confronted the Red Scare and its aftereffects . Both episodes reveal the arrival of a new political movement on the scene of American public life: the Communist Party (CP) would become an increasingly more influential player in annual May Day celebrations beginning in this decade. The story of Nathan Franko’s opposition to the communist celebration in New York in 1925 exemplifies the heightened antagonism that May Day demonstrations faced during the 1920s. And the events in Chicago indicate the more widespread and visible presence of children in such demonstrations, a participation that would trigger heated opposition from both political moderates and conservatives. Those, like Franko, who were offended or frightened by May Day’s radical displays, sought to assert their own...