William C. Richards, Douglas D. Martin, James S. Pooler, Frank D. Webb, John N. W. Sloan

“ There were no great gaps between the Michigan units. Grand Rapids was only a few steps removed from Sault St. Marie. All moved at a lively tempo, bolstered by the gay airs. The crowd grew merrier and merrier. The Mardi Gras spirit seemed to emanate from the Michigan troops. Their comedians seemed just a little funnier, possibly because of their anticipation that the long day was nearing an end.
As the Michigan march proceeded and the skyline signs of the city blazed out overhead, it became evident that something of the Mardi Gras spirit was creeping back over the crowd and the marchers. ”

“ The clock in the City Hall tower struck eight just as the last of the parade passed the reviewing stand. The parade lacked 12 minutes of being as long as the Boston parade. It was exactly eight hours long.
A Day of Drama
It was a day that none who saw it will forget. Yet it was a day that memory can never reconstruct. One will not forget the rolling thunder of the drums, beating, beating, until they seemed to shake the brick and granite walls of the city's canyons. None will forget that steady tread of marching feet, going on hour after hour, nor the shrill, brass calls of the bugles. ”

“ Neither of the drum majors ever will know who was the favorite. Toward the close of the parade, the bands came closer and closer together. Their tunes merged. Sometimes their tempos clashed. But it was a case of who cares. The spirit of pageantry was in the crowd. Everything was grand.
Michigan's floats: Doughboys in a dugout and pretty Miss Liberty, on a pedestal behind, her protectors. Another float—this one carried a queen, Michigan's peach queen.
For the first time since the Michigan posts swept into Woodward Ave., there was a distraction. The crowd took its eyes from the parade. ”

“ At 7 o'clock came Michigan, led by Gov. Brucker and Mayor Murphy. Marching behind the color guard came the State's standards,—50 beautiful American flags, followed by an equal number of Legion banners in blue and gold.
One thought of the words "Like an Army with Banners," as they swept up the street. And of an Army which has earned its banners, if any ever won its standards in battle! ”

“ Sons of Michigan's sister state in the Red Arrow division were unrestrainable. It was the Legionnaires from Milwaukee who sang as they marched:
'The Old Gray Hearse goes rolling by, 'You don't know whether to laugh or cry; 'For you know some day it'll get you, too, 'And the hearse's next load may consist of—You. They sang with a gusto that was infectious and those vets among the spectators, to whom it had a familiar ring, took up the refrain. ”

“ The massed colors of this State, with several foreign flags intermingled with Old Glory was a rainbow of color. The marching ranks were well filled.
Police officers still wrestled with the Michigan Ave. bulge which closed in to the street car tracks.
Indiana, the Eighth Division of the parade, led by a 60-piece band, in grass green, entered the picture with more than 20 massed standards, and women's drum corps with red capes over white. The Indiana boys in solid lines were the most numerous so far, with at least 1,000 marchers. ”

“ Those who looked on, packing themselves into the smallest of spaces, began to gather shortly after 7 o'clock, and when the Legion entered Woodward Ave. at Jefferson at 12:10 p.m. o'clock in all its display of man power, downtown Detroit held room only for those with endurance and stout shoulders. Campus ropes, the police and volunteer gendarmes had all they could do to restrain the surging crowds, and the skyscrapers forming the perpendicular sides of the picture framed at their windows an additional army of watchers. ”

“ The measured tread of thousands, pounding on interminably, the beat, beat, beat of thousands of drums, echoing and re-echoing through the deep canyons of the city street, fostered a realization that back of the color and the play and the music, there was the strongest organization in America. ”

“ No awkward packs on the shoulders. Nothing of fear and solitude. Nothing of corruption and men crushed in mud, moaning ones masked with dust and calling to stretcher-bearers, men living and dying in dirty trenches—and away off beyond a broad sea a quaint commingling of preachment about mercy, in one breath, and the glorifications of barbarity, in the next.
Thousands Upon Thousands
So the thousands upon thousands marched, swinging down E. Jefferson Ave. and turning North at Woodward into the roaring canyon. ”

“ There were men who never reached an outbound gang-plank and men who knew full well the green fumes rising off the long stretches of mustard, the bitterness of Archangel and the streaked sky of Belleau, clipped by lead and stumps standing like gallows-trees against the sky-line. ”

“ All kinds of men, and the women they left behind them, filled the prideful, clicking columns. There were men who saw none of it and there were men who saw it all and played the string out. There were men too late at the final push, and men who made, in America, household names and tourist spots of tiny French villages previously unknown, unvisited, unhonored, unawakened. ”

“ Bulging human walls gave the line of march a snake-like appearance just beyond the reviewing stand, the Michigan Ave. mass resisting even efforts of the mounted policemen to drive them back. Near the Soldiers' Monument reviewing stand for notables, there was another bulge which gave the line a decided twist. ”

“ Tired spectators ambled off to side streets for rest and refreshment, only to return to a new point of vantage. The crowd had moved so far into the streets that room was available on Woodward Ave. sidewalks and pedestrian traffic moved north and south without much difficulty. It was harder for the Legionnaires, however, who were confined to the narrow lane bounded by Woodward Ave. street car tracks.
The drum and bugle corps of Galion, O., was the 100th to have passed in the parade while 44 bands had completed the line of march. This was at 5:15 o'clock. ”

“ Virtually in close order formation, the men of this state, swung between the lines of spectators, the most imposing, in numbers, of the entire procession.
Crowds Begin to Shift
As day slipped over into night the crowd began to change. Many who had lined the streets since early in the day surrendered to hunger and went home to eat. Their places were taken by Legionnaires who had been near the head of the parade and who came back to watch their buddies. The Michigan detachment marched through rows in which the uniforms of their fellow Legionnaires were well sprinkled. ”

“ Here are some statistics that will provide Legion arguments for years to come. In numberless veterans' halls, as long as their voices last, they will ask, was it a hundred thousand in the parade and a million in the crowd, or a hundred thousand in the crowd and a million in the parade?
Commander Ralph O'Neil says it was neither. According to the Commander's figures there were 85,000 marching men and women, part of the 120,000 Legionnaires Col. Frederick M. Alger estimates were in town Tuesday. John P. Smith, deputy superintendent of police, estimated 90,000 marchers and 1,000,000 watchers. ”

“ Surging Mass of Spectators Keeps Police Busy Clearing Route; Many Notables Present in Reviewing Stand
Story by William C. Richards, Douglas D. Martin, James S. Pooler, Frank D. Webb and John N. W. Sloan
Sketches by Russell Legge.
The Legion marched.
The Yanks came—thousands upon thousands of them who have been sung about always as coming. Pulses quickened. Tempo moved up. The pendulum flew faster. And those who thought they had laid away the World War in a cobwebby file felt again a familiar throbbing.
The crowd that watched was estimated at a million. ”

“ On a well-decorated float they placed a dozen small boys in uniform and surmounted them all with a giant sign which read: "Legion-Heirs." It got a hand and a shower of confetti from the crowd.
The first Boy Scout band in the parade followed the banner of Cleveland. More than 50 boys were in the organization. ”

“ The Indianapolis outfit was headed by its crack drum and bugle corps followed by a host of Legionnaires from the National Headquarters city. It was succeeded in the line of march by Columbus, Ind., veterans and the brass band of Valparaiso, whose deployed drummers and bugler were forced to close in as the crowds pressed farther out into Woodward Ave. As this contingent of the parade passed, police made a concerted "attack" on the crowd, forcing the line back. ”

“ He held his sweetheart on his shoulders for a full 15 minutes that she might view the passing parade.
The Hooligans, of Morris, Ill., dressed in clown costumes, added a touch of merriment. They were unique in their dress, since most of the units were in trim uniforms and marched in perfect line, eyes front.
Crowds Peril Police
For a full hour, between 2 and 3 o'clock, it seemed certain that the police would lose control of the crowd at any minute. Fully 50,000 people were massed in the circle before the City Hall and backed up on Monroe, Michigan and Fort. ”

“ At 2:30 o'clock a motorcycle corp of the Detroit Police Department pushed up Woodward Ave. past the reviewing stand in an effort to open the way for resumption of the parade. More than 40 motorcycle men were in the squad that charged the converging lines of spectators. ”

“ The number of marchers was put at 85,000 by National Commander Ralph T. O'Neil. Other estimates, among them that of Maj. Gen. Guy Wilson, field marshal, were as high as 100,000.
Still, this was nothing new. ”