Memorial Day on the Wrong Date

The saddest cartoon in the Sunday "funny papers" was this strip by Anthony Rabino and Gary Markstein. The title of the cartoon is "Daddy's Home." The entire "comic" strip is composed of folded flags, such as those given to widows of servicemen killed in battle or otherwise given military funerals.

The saddest cartoon in the Sunday “funny papers” was a strip by Anthony Rabino and Gary Markstein. The title of the cartoon is “Daddy’s Home.” The entire “comic” strip is composed of folded flags, such as those given to widows of servicemen killed in battle or otherwise given military funerals.

There was a protracted fight in the Illinois General Assembly during the 1970’s over whether Illinois should celebrate Memorial Day on May 30th or go with the flow and make another three-day weekend ending in the final Monday of May.

In the end, tourism interests beat back those who wanted to honor those who died in battle, even though Illinois General John Logan started the tradition. He was even a State Representative for three years, served in Congress and was an unsuccessful Vice Presidential candidate.

I bring this up today, because the commercial interests seem to have outsmarted themselves for at least the last two years around here.

May 30th was a fine day last year and is predicted to be this year, while the last day in May hasn’t been so hot.

When Illinois voted to change the date to remember those who died for our country, I voted with the minority to leave it on May 30th.


Comments

Memorial Day on the Wrong Date — 3 Comments

  1. Cal? What happened to all the comments on your article on the healing wall visiting us? Seems you deleted all of them.

  2. Gen Logan arbitrarily chose May 30th as Decoration Day because it was not the anniversary of any major battle and it was the right time of year to have a plentiful supply of flowers for decorating graves.

    It’s not like Veteran’s Day or the Fourth of July which commemorate the anniversary of historical events.

    Congress changed the law in 1971 to make most federal holidays fall on a Monday.

    If you had prevailed in keeping Memorial Day on May 30th, there would be both a state and a federal Memorial Day, and our already underworked state and local employees would have received another paid day off.

  3. Sunshine blogger, have you considered a county holiday? Stay tuned…tic, tock, tic, tock, tic, tock…

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