1911 July 16, “A Saner Fourth”, inThe Chicago Sunday Tribune, volume LXX, number29, Chicago, Ill.: The Tribune Company, Metropolitan Section,page 4, column 3:
And the Ohio State Journal reports that “it was the hottest, quietest, and safestFourth of July that Columbus ever had. The firecracker, the gun, and the cannon did not appear, and so there was not an injured or mangled boy or dead body anywhere yesterday as a result of powder patriotism. What a happy condition for the city to be in! What a marked difference from other days, after the Fourth. It seems that these ear splitting and soul stabbingFourth of Julys are ended; and it is well; it is very well.”
1921 July 2, Annie Hamilton Donnell, “Do-As-You-Please Day: A Fourth of July Story”, inThe Christian Herald[…], volume44, number27, New York, N.Y.: Graham Patterson,page469, column 1:
MARY went in to the frail little mother and told her the news through the cotton wool in both ears. Mrs. Davis had no difficulty hearing, so beautifully penetrating is good news. The relief in her pale little face “choked” Mary. / “My dear! You are an angel, there in that white robe! All you haven’t got is wings! If you knew—if anybody but mecould know the torturesFourth of Julys are to me.[…]”
2005, Martha Bolton, “Season’s Greetings”, inGrowing Your Own Turtleneck… and Other Benefits of Aging, Bloomington, Minn.:Bethany House Publishers,→ISBN,page98:
OurFourth of Julys are sounding different, too. Come to one of our barbeques and you might hear “Praise the Lord and Pass the Metamucil” or that ol’ patriotic favorite “Let Eardrums Ring.”