The Pittsburgh Press (October 12, 1940)
Buffalo, N.Y., Oct. 12 –
“Lack of response” today caused the Federation of Italian Societies to cancel its annual Columbus Day parade.
Leaders said younger delegates objected to displaying the Italian flag “because of the situation in Europe and the pro-English sympathies of America.”
Columbus Day was a pretty new holiday at the time in a lot of places, and I think Italian-Americans were still seen as strangers in much of the Midwest, which Buffalo basically is. I wonder if the unique Sicilian identity was a major issue for both Americans and Axis powers that wanted Sicilian immigrants and their progeny to sympathize with Mussolini.
(https://www.jstor.org/stable/1875676?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents)
Speaking of pro-English sympathies, either you or the original headline used, as of 2019, the British spelling of ‘canceled.’
You’re right. Columbus Day wasn’t even ten years old, at least in federal eyes.
As for the use of “cancelled”, it was in the original headline. I don’t know why the editors of the Pittsburgh Press wrote it that way, considering that “canceled” was already widely used in America, even by 1940 (thanks, Webster). But “cancelled” was and is recognized as a legitimate variant.
Also, Buffalo is more of a weird mix of the Midwest and the Northeast (it is in Western New York, after all).