New York, May 31.-(AP)—Jeers, catcalls and shouts of “down with Mussolini,” caused by the presence of 200 Fascisti marchers, created a disturbance in New York’s Memorial Day parade. Mounted police charged and dispersed the disturbers whose ardor, undampened by the soft rain which fell on ceremonies throughout the east, at first threatened serious trouble.
Attired in black overseas caps with black tassels, black puttees, black breeches and shoes and the symbolic black shirts, the Fascisti gathering fell in behind a band of boy scouts.
Officers of other units protested their presence, saying that Mussolini was opposed to the Americanization of Italians in America, but the uninvited guests insisted on their right to participate along with the delegations of veterans of hall a dozen foreign countries.
On Riverside Drive anti-Fascisti numbering about 200 gathered and began jeering and shouting.
The crowds that lined the drive broke in confusion. Mounted police charged into the anti-Fascisti and they fled. The Fascisti continued in the parade.
Despite the day-long rain reported throughout most of the eastern states, thousands participated in ceremonies and parades attesting remembrance of the nation’s war dead.
A general exodus to countryside resorts in a rain hope for pleasant holiday weather thinned the ranks of the participants. Tombs and graves were decorated and radios told of services held aboard ships at sea.
Seventy eight Civil War Veterans, holding high their battle flags, proudly marched past the reviewing stand where Gen. Smith, Maj. Gen. William N. Haskell, commander of the New York National Guard, and other civil and military dignitaries stood.
Daily Kennebec Journal, Augusta, ME, June 1, 1926