OBSCURE HOLIDAY MAKING COMEBACK

When Loyalty Day was born in the late 1950s, New Yorkers observed it with giant red, white and blue parades.

But on Tuesday, some passers-by mistook the flags lining Broadway for part of a May Day celebration.

Loyalty Day has become an obscure, almost forgotten national holiday.

It's still celebrated by some Veterans of Foreign Wars posts, counties and school districts across the nation. VFW Post 1095 and its auxiliary conducted a ceremony at the Veterans to All Wars Memorial in Brookside Park at Jackson, Mo. Jack Latimer, a chairman of the event, said the post observes Loyalty Day every year.

Calls to a number of schools and organizations verified that few knew of the holiday, established to encourage Americans to reaffirm their loyalty to the United States. Most associated May 1 with May Day, a celebration of spring.

But members of Boy Scout Troop 21, sponsored by St. Andrew Lutheran Church, know all about Loyalty Day and have erected the flags over the years -- including those in downtown Cape Girardeau. Scoutmaster Jim Grebing said the troop solicits donations from businesses in return for the service, which they also do on other patriotic holidays and election days.

"Loyalty Day is beginning to come back in Missouri," Grebing said. "It's a holiday that's starting to gain some local observation. I've heard about events in Sedalia."

The VFW founded an Americanism program in 1921 and led a campaign for Loyalty Day in the late 1940s to counteract communism and celebrate American freedom. In 1954, Congressman James E. Van Zandt of Pennsylvania introduced a House resolution calling for declaration of Loyalty Day. His bill passed the House but not the Senate.

In 1955, he reintroduced the bill. It was passed, but Congress designated only May 1, 1955, as Loyalty Day. Congress in 1958 adopted Public Law 529, which designates every May 1 Loyalty Day.

The law also calls for the flag to be displayed on all government buildings and urges people to observe Loyalty Day with ceremonies in schools and other public places.