May 20.
Americans in Shanghai will to-day Join their countrymen all over the world in observing Memorial Day or Decoration Day in the traditional fashion, The tradition has its roots in the days of the Civil War, May 30 being designated as a holiday in which to honour the soldiers who lost their lives by decorating their graves with flags and flowers, There was fixed day generally observed until 1068. when Commander-in-Chief John 'A. Logan, of the Grand. Army of the Republic, issued a general order designating May 30, 1868 "for the Purpose of strewing with Nowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defence of their country during the late rebellion." This was done "with the hope that will be Kept up from year to year."
was not until 1882 that the Grand Army urged that the "proper design tion of May 30 is Memorial Day"—not Decoration Day.
With the passage of years which saw Americans again giving their ives on the battlefields, Memorial Day has come to be an occasion on Which to honour also the heroes of the Spanish-American and - World Wars. The sacrifice in human life which welded the disjointed states into a truly United States was later to be proved not in vain by the unity with which men of all the states fought under a single banner in the more Services will be conducted in Shanghai over the graves of 90 service men at the Bubbling Well Road Cemetery at 9 o'clock this mornin Mr. Clarence E. Gauss, United Star Consul-General, will preside at the ceremony and the principal address will be delivered by Judge Milton J. Helmick, of the U. 8, Court for China. Detachments of the Fourth Marines, sailors, and American companies of the Shanghai Volunteer Corps. will make the ceremony all the more impressive. "The rites will be opened with an invocation by Lieut, Prank R. Hamilton, Regimental Chaplain of the Marine Corps, following which, duet will be sung by Mrs, A.M: Dunlap and Mrs, R. M. Vanderburgh. Volleys will be fred over the graves and after the Benediction is. pronounced, the ceremony will come to 8 conclusion with the patriotic strains of "The Star Spangled Banner."
Throughout America military organizations, assisted by civilian and municipal groups as well as the D.A.R. Daughters of the American Revolution) and kindred bodies, move with solemnity and fervour to. the cemeteries to pay their tribute to those who died in the service of their country. Not a few also take the opportunity of decorating the graves of others near and dear to them.
'Similarly in the far reaches of the globe, wherever an American soldier, sailor or marine, lies on foreign soil Britain, the Continent, Africa, Cuba [ind the Central and South' American Yrepublies, although without the assistance of the Services, but led by Consular representatives, the Ameri-fan community, however small, fails of to observe this Memorial Bay.
To the American people the gasion is a sacred one; that they do "honour to their heroic dead. isnot considered a duly, but rather a privilege, In this day, when nations
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.