From the Aug. 31, 1920 issue of the Boston Post, selected and edited by Kaimi Rose Lum
PROVINCETOWN — Great Britain, France and Holland joined with the United States today in celebrating the 300th anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims.
Bainbridge Colby, Secretary of State, conveyed greetings from President Wilson to the people of Provincetown in honor of the observance, and his Excellency Dr. William H. DeBeaufort, acting minister from the Netherlands, presented the good wishes of Queen Wilhelmina of Holland, who is taking a prominent part in the Pilgrim celebration in her own country and whose birthday occurs on Tuesday.
Captain Geoffrey Blake, Naval Attache of the British Embassy, spoke for Sir Auckland Geddes, the British Ambassador, and Captain M. de Ruffi de Penteves Gevaudan presented congratulations in behalf of the French government.
As for the rest of the world, it seemed represented in the great crowd that witnessed the spectacular street parade in the afternoon and the fireworks and illumination at night. Although marred by the absence of the British and French sailors for whom permission to carry arms could not be obtained in time, the parade was a brilliant military and civil pageant. As it passed in review before the Town Hall where Secretary Colby, Lieutenant-Governor Cox and all the Foreign representatives with the town officials looked on, the moving column made a dazzling picture.…
Behind Uncle Sam’s “hand” picked marines, the pet of the navy, came natty young bluejackets, slim of waist and figure but looking like first-class fighting men, bronzed with the sun and winds of the sea. Smart young officers marched at their head with sword unsheathed and cutlasses drawn.
Sharing the popularity of the crowd with the marines and bluejackets as they strode along, came the Beach Combers, a Bohemian organization of artists. Blood-spattered pirates they were, with wicked-looking dirks sticking out of their belts, earrings in their ears and heads swathed in red bandannas. No cut-throats who ever scuttled a ship looked more blood-thirsty than Joseph B. Birrem, who led the motley crew, with blood dripping from his cutlass. Trailing him was Captain Kidd, the hero pirate of New England. The Mayflower descendants have never claimed this doughty old freebooter of the seas, but a Mayflower descendant impersonated him today in the person of George Elmer Brown, the skipper of the Beach Combers.…
These few examples were the high spots in the parade, which had a rival at night in the illumination of the town. The four battleships in the harbor cut the dark night sky with their searchlights, sending great shafts of silver light into the town and illuminating house and shop and church steeple with a radiance that was beautiful and fascinating. —David P. Shea
