‘Socialist Children Celebration May Day’ from the New York Call. Vol. 3 No. 122. May 2, 1910.

Yearly Event Draws Big Crowd to Murray Hill Lyceum–Sketch “War and Peace” Cleverly Acted.

In the great May Day celebration of the Socialist Sunday schools of Greater New York, which took place yesterday afternoon at Murray Hill Lyceum, about 1,000 children were present and about 2,500 grown-ups.

The program carried out and the decorations and emblems were highly fitting for the occasion. There were banners hanging from the balcony with inscriptions representing the different schools upon them.

Each school had a separate part of the room assigned to it. The following Socialist Sunday schools were represented: Borough Park, Harlem, Williamsburg, Brownsville, Bronx, East Side, and the Ferrer Sunday school.

Much taste was expressed in the arrangement of the dances and they were highly interesting to those who looked on. The children fell Inte the spirit of the occasion and the grownups enjoyed it as much as they did.

The Hungarian dances and the waltz series were unusually good. The recitations and songs were all appreciated. George R. Kirkpatrick, who came to the entertainment somewhat late, in his short talk said the Socialist Sunday schools develop attitudes in the minds of the children which will enable them later in life to counteract the evils which society imposes upon them in dealing with each other.

The sketch “War and Peace” was the most impressive of anything the children did. Several boys and girls took part. The boys argued that war contributed to the welfare of society, while the girls held that it didn’t. The girls finally convinced the boys to their position and then the latter broke their swords and sabers, changed their military uniforms and dressed themselves in in mechanic clothes.

They held hoes and hammers in their hands, while the girls held baskets of flowers, and they sang in chorus the Song of Peace. This performance was heartily applauded the large audience.

The celebration was held under the auspices of the Workmen’s Circle and those in charge were highly pleased with the success of their plans.

The New York Call was the first English-language Socialist daily paper in New York City and the second in the US after the Chicago Daily Socialist. The paper was the center of the Socialist Party and under the influence of Morris Hillquit, Charles Ervin, Julius Gerber, and William Butscher. The paper was opposed to World War One, and, unsurprising given the era’s fluidity, ambivalent on the Russian Revolution even after the expulsion of the SP’s Left Wing. The paper is an invaluable resource for information on the city’s workers movement and history and one of the most important papers in the history of US socialism. The paper ran from 1908 until 1923.

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