American flags flew on earlier 9/11s
The 14th anniversary of 9/11 and the flags that flew as patriotism rose that day spur a question: What happened on other September 11s when American flags flapped?
FOSTERING MUSIC
“Oh! Susanna” is probably Stephen Foster’s most famous song, and it was first performed on 9/11 in 1847. But he also wrote the music for Civil War-era songs that encouraged patriotic efforts to keep the nation united.
Two examples are “Fighting For the Flag Day and Night” and “For the Dear Old Flag I Die,” both published in 1865. The lyrics for the latter song begin: “For the dear old Flag I die,/Said the wounded drummer boy;/Mother, press your lips to mine;/O, they bring me peace and joy!”
A DYING PRESIDENT
On September 6, 1901, President William McKinley was shot while attending the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo. Earlier, star-spangled banners had fluttered throughout the grounds when he spoke to the crowds, and they stood near the chief executive when he was mortally wounded.
On 9/11, a newspaper reported that one of the attending physicians said, “The President is doing well and everything…has been most…satisfactory.” The doctor was wrong. McKinley died on September 14, and his funeral was bedecked with half-staff flags and bunting.
WELCOME HOME, WET ONE
The name of Mille Gade Corson is not well known today, but she was a celebrated athlete in her day, as reported by the Associated Press on 9/11 in 1926. The cause of her celebrity can be stated in a few words: She was the first mom to swim the English Channel. Ocean liners and fishing boats lifted U.S. flags atop their masts to encourage her as she swam.
At a flag-decorated City Hall in New York City that September, the mother of two was given a gold medal. Later, visiting a battleship, Corson was presented with a wrist watch and an American flag. Not bad for a Danish-born woman who came to the U.S. and worked her way up in her new nation by – what else? – giving swimming lessons.
FDR AND EXPELLED STUDENTS
In September 1941, three months before Pearl Harbor was attacked, newspapers across the country ran front-page stories with headlines like “FDR Raps Axis Attacks On Shipping” and “Roosevelt Speech Is Called War.” The cause was his remarks on 9/11, warning German warships that they “hammer at our most important rights when they attack ships of the American flag.”
Papers also carried the story of several grade-school students in California. Alice, Claude, Lloyd, Eldora, Billy, Ruth, Elaine and Audrey were expelled “for refusal to salute the American flag and recite the pledge of allegiance,” said The Sacramento Bee. They were all Jehovah’s Witnesses, whose religious beliefs forbade them honoring anything other than God.
Throughout the decades, 9/11 has been an interesting, happy and tragic date.