Category Archives: Forgotten Stories

Articles in this feature are reprints from works in the public domain, typically anything published prior to 1924. Reprinting public domain articles both promotes the survival of these works for future generations and brings to light histories that have been forgotten. Articles are chosen that recall the history of the Grand Traverse Region.

Forgotten Stories

Traverse City Day, 1911

August 30, 1911, the Record-Eagle’s headlines told the story:

“GREAT CROWD AT PICNIC

TRAVERSE CITY DAY WAS HUGE SUCCESS

THOUSANDS HAD GOOD TIME

MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN ENJOYED RECREATION

Stores and Factories Closed Most of Day—Greatest Gathering Ever on Grounds Saw Thrilling Ball Game”

Before the Traverse City Film Festival, before the Cherry Festival, Traverse City held a celebration of its own, a festival that carried no overtones of patriotism or commercialism.  Participants were invited to bring their own picnic goodies to the Civic Center (then called the Driving Park) for a day of fun.  Farmers came with their families, and city folk, too.  The rich and poor mingled.  Young and old.  Factory workers and their bosses.  Estimates of the crowd varied between 8,000 and 10,000 people.

They ate and they partied.  There were day fireworks and paper balloons launched for children, a bowery dance (a dance held outside) for the young, and the culminating baseball game for all who cared for that sport.  In 1911—but not in 1912, the final year of Traverse City Day—speeches were offered to the crowd.  One of them stands out because of its relevance to today’s social climate.  Here are the words of the Record-Eagle in describing it.

Judge A. L. Deuel, member of the executive board of the Western Michigan Development Bureau, was the next speaker. Introduced by Mr. Amiotte.  He had many good things to say and he said them in a manner that impressed his hearers with the fact that he knew what he was talking about.  Mr. Deuel is full of vim and fire and his address had a tendency in showing the farmers and the city people as well what it means not to patronize home industries.  “Traverse City is a live city, a beautiful city,” he said, “and she is becoming more beautiful every year.  If we could go through a Rip Van Winkle sleep of twenty years and awake to find the great Grand Traverse region, we would be astounded at the great growth.  All this is taking place just the same only we are not asleep and the development is taking place so fast that we don’t realize it.  If any of you farmers or city people either, are sending to Sears & Roebuck or any other mail order house for goods, cut it out.  The home trade is what we need to help pay our taxes, and Sears Roebuck will never help you.  They wouldn’t know you if you went into their store.  They don’t care, all they want is your money.  We are now living in the best age of the world.  What are you doing for your community?  Work together for your county, your township, and do your best always.  No man can do more than his best, and when you have done that the duty of man to his country is fulfilled.

This concluded the program and everybody flocked to the diamond to see the great battle of baseball, the feature attraction of the day.

Forgotten Stories

The Real Issue

This editorial was taken from Traverse City’s socialist newspaper, Honest Opinion, June 5, 1919:

Do you believe that less than five per cent of the people of the United States should be given the privilege of preying on the other ninety five per cent?  Do you believe that those who do all the necessary work of the United States and every other country in the world should live within a week of starvation while those who do not labor at all should wallow in wealth to the extent that they are obliged to invent new devices and inventions of the mind, more or less immoral, in order to get rid of their ill gotten gains?  Do you believe that more than sixty per cent of the people should be constantly menaced with violent death so that three per cent can become millionaires?  Do you know that one millionaire means ten thousand wage slaves?  Do you know that most of these wage slaves have innocent little children and these little children are the greatest sufferers from this abominable situation?  If you do, you stand for capitalism.  If you do not, you have no business on that side.  The voice of reason should reach you.  Let not the prostitutes of plutocracy blind you to the fact that there is only one issue for you and for them and that is whether or not you are going to get decent food, decent clothing, and decent shelter for yourself and your children.  Any other issue is a mere camouflage and made to rob you of your birthright as guaranteed you by the constitution the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  Don’t let them make that document a scrap of paper.

Despite its exaggerations, occasional error (the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution, is quoted), and run-on sentences, it reminds us of the modern “We are the 99%” Occupy Movement in its insistence that our nation belongs to all of us, not just the wealthy few.  Socialist and later supporter of FDR, local activist Thomas H. Coxe authored the piece.  He died in 1936.

The Traverse Area District Library Woodmere branch has several issues of Honest Opinion stored on microfilm.