* By ELMO SCOTT WATSON MERICA may be “melting pot of the na- tions,” but there is one day in the year, at least. when she offers striking evidence that she is the daughter of Old England and that the descendants 7 of the founders of the na- tion, despite the infiltration of other racial strains during the centuries in which the nation was building, are still conscious of their English an- cestry. That day is the first of May. To some people who live in America but who have not yet been trans- formed into Americans by the al- chemy of meiting pot, May 1 means & day for protest against the prevailing order of things, called “radical” activities, for for an “uprising” somehow never geems to come For Ameri means another semi-annual rangements from old fire sides to new, known as “Moving day.” But te millions of young in our schools and eolleg TOR, festival day, » time of merrymaking, of And as they, gaily and out with the tached to the top on level they of “bringing in the back In an unbroken Elizabethan days In Merrie In that respect, May unique. Few, if any, of the holidas which we celebrate are observed manner so resembling ancient observance is this one. It is one of the popular customs of the long ago which persists after others have long since passed away The month of May is named for Maia, the Roman goddess of fertility. Maia was the personification of spring and was thought to have every soming wild flower and shrub under her special care and protection. he Romans engaged in floral games during the first week of May. So the May day eelebration of a later period had its roots in the rites orig- fnally offered in hovor of the god- dess Main. But it was another No- man festival which brought to May day the character of the ceremonies which made it distinctive. This was the Floralia, held in honor of Flora, the goddess of flowers, when theme were gay costumes, dramatic perform- ances and dances. When Christianity began to prevail over Europe, certain pagan customs were retained in a modified form and among these was the May day celebration. In medieval times It became an important festival and all classes of people, old and young, participated in it. Among the Russians there was a spring festival celebrated by the boys and girls with af choral dance called “Khorovod” and In Sweden there was also a May day celebration with a dance, But for some reason reached Its highest development in England and we now think of it as a distinctively English custom. Early in the first morning of May the men and the maids of Old England would set forth singing for the fields and the woods to gather flowering boughs, wayside blossoms and any pretty, fresh green things that might await them. These treasures were used to “May” the doors of the popu- lar houses in the village. It is this custom which survives in the hanging of May baskets by the children of today. However the “Mayere” went into the woods primarily to choose the tallest, stralghtest hawthorne, to eut it down and, with its greenness still freshly fragrant, to bring it into the public square, there to raise it for the center of their long day's festivity. They did it with much ceremony. A writer in the Fifteenth century pays: “They bring home with great veneration; they have twentie or fortie yoake of oxen-—every one hav- ing a sweet nosegale of flowers tied to the tip of his horns, and those oxen draw home the May poale. . . cov ered all over with flowers and hearbes, . , and thus equipped it the the for so- calling which off successfull iy. May 1 kind, the domestic ar- millions of cans disorder of upheaval in and change Ameri May 1 rejoicing and of Weave In tong dressed, long strear of a May; stretch of are perpetuating an old May” which traces line to the Engla pole ere some greenswara, rit o31y custom day Is 1 # closely its as blos. elaborate the festival o8 stroear tie top. Maypole having been raised, ented by a Puritan “And then fell . to leape an y 1 11 lows is res heathen people of their pattern, or raf licatic idols, is is a perf illed by and celebra the wmgan 1 by aucer y » superstition,” was long te and poor alike. (Cl! “Fourth most and lest, the rich writes both court, * flow. in his savs “In man, except into the wool with sweel flow. the mon impedim sweele every would walk meadows and there to the beauty greeqe rejoice their spirits and savour of ers As already ind were « icnted, these May. pole affairs bnoxious to the Purit To them the revelers were only hea So the May day servances forbidden by pariia- ment in 1644, but same into favor once more at Restoration. ans. thens, ob- were A Maypole once set up might re main for many years and annually be made the focus of popular amuse- ments. The cities joined in the cele bration just as eagerly as the country folk. Stow, in his “History of Lon- don,” mentions several Maypoles, of which stood at what is now St Mary-le-Strand, a erowded thorough- fare. In his day It was 100 feet high. The last Maypole erected in London was of cedar, 134 feet high. It was set up by 12 British sailors under the personal supervision of James 11, then duke of York and lord high admiral, near the site of the present church of St. Mary's in the Strand. Half a cen- tury later, it was removed to Wan- stead Park in Essex, where it was used by Sir Isane Newton as part of the support of a large telescope which had been presented the Royal society by a French astronomer. Another celebrated Maypole was that from which St. Andrew's Under- shaft in Leadenhall street in London is supposed to have taken its nime, Stow says that it was due to a “high or long shaft or Maypole higher than the steeple (hence undershaft) which used early in the morning of May day ~