Conquest of America: A Romance of Disaster and Victory, U.S.A., 1921 A.D.
Page 25
CHAPTER XXII
ON CHRISTMAS EVE BOSTON THEILLS THE NATION WITH AN ACT OF MAGNIFICENTHEROISM
Now all over America came a marvellous spiritual awakening. The sacrificeof the President's noble life, and his wife's thrilling effort to shieldher husband, was not in vain. Once more the world knew the resistlesspower of a martyr's death. Women and men alike were stirred to warlikezeal and a joy in national sacrifice and service. The enlistment officerswere swamped with a crush of young and old, eager to join the colours;and within three days following the President's assassination a millionsoldiers were added to the army of defence and a million more were turnedaway. It was no longer a question how to raise a great American army, buthow to train and equip it, and how to provide it with officers.
Most admirable was the behaviour of the great body of German-Americans;in fact it was a German-American branch of the American Defence Society,financed in America, that started the beautiful custom, which becameuniversal, of wearing patriotic buttons bearing the sacred words: _"TheUnion! The Flag!"_
"It was one thing," wrote Bernard Ridder in the Chicago _Staats-Zeitung_,"for German-Americans to side with Germany in the great European war(1914-1919) when only our sympathies were involved. It is quite adifferent thing for us now in a war that involves our homes and ourproperty, all that we have in the world. When Germany attacks America,she attacks German-Americans, she attacks us in our material interests,in our fondest associations; and we will resist her just as in 1776 theAmerican colonists, who were really English, resisted England, the mothercountry, when she attacked them in the same way."
I was impressed by the truth of this statement during a visit that Imade to Milwaukee, where I found greatly improved conditions. In fact,German-Americans themselves were bringing to light the activities ofGerman spies and vigorously opposing German propaganda.
In Allentown, Pennsylvania, which has a large German population, I heardof a German-American mother named Roth, who was so zealous in her loyaltyto the United States that she rose at five o'clock on the day followingthe President's assassination and enlisted her three sons before theywere out of bed.
In Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Cleveland and other cities womenvolunteered by thousands as postmen, street-car conductors, elevatoroperators and for service in factories and business houses, so as torelease the men for military service. Chicago newspapers printed picturesof Mrs. Harold F. McCormick, Mrs. J. Ogden Armour, Mrs. J. ClarenceWebster and other prominent society women in blue caps and improviseduniforms, ringing up fares on the Wabash Avenue cars for the sake of theexample they would set to others.
In San Francisco, Denver, Portland, Oregon, Omaha, and Salt Lake City ahundred thousand women, at gatherings of women's clubs and organisations,formally joined the Women's National War Economy League and pledgedthemselves as follows:
"We, the undersigned American women, in this time of national need andperil, do hereby promise:
"(1) To buy no jewelry or useless ornaments for one year and tocontribute the amount thus saved (from an average estimated allowance) tothe Women's National War Fund.
"(2) To buy only two hats a year, the value of said hats not to exceedten dollars, and to contribute the amount thus saved (from an averageestimated allowance) to the Women's National War Fund.
"(3) To buy only two dresses a year, the value of said dresses not toexceed sixty dollars, and to contribute the amount thus saved (from anaverage estimated allowance) to the Women's National War Fund.
"(4) To forego all entertaining at restaurants, all formal dinner andluncheon parties and to contribute the amount thus saved (from an averageestimated allowance) to the Women's National War Fund.
"(5) To abstain from cocktails, highballs and all expensive wines, alsofrom cigarettes, to influence husbands, fathers, brothers, sons and menfriends to do the same, and to contribute the amount thus saved to theWomen's National War Fund.
"(6) To keep this pledge until the invader has been driven from the soilof free America."
I may mention that Mrs. Harriot Stanton Blatch, in urging her sisterwomen at various mass meetings to sign this pledge, made the impressiveestimate that, by practising these economies during a two years' war, ahundred thousand well-to-do American women might save a _thousand milliondollars_.
Other American women, under the leadership of Mrs. Mary Logan Tucker,daughter of General John A. Logan, prepared themselves for active fieldservice at women's military camps, in several states, where they wereinstructed in bandage making, first-aid service, signalling and the useof small arms.
As weeks passed the national spirit grew stronger, stimulated by rousingspeeches of Roosevelt, Russell and Bryan and fanned into full flame byBoston's immortal achievement on December 24, 1921. On that day, byauthorisation of General von Beseler, commanding the German force ofoccupation, a great crowd had gathered on Boston Common for a Christmastree celebration with a distribution of food and toys for the poor of thecity. In the Public Gardens near the statue of George Washington, BillySunday was making an address when suddenly, on the stroke of five, thebell in the old Park Street church and then the bells in all the churchesof Boston began to toll.
It was a signal for an uprising of the people and was answered in a waythat will fill a proud page of American history so long as human courageand love of liberty are honoured upon earth. In an instant everytelephone wire in the city went dead, leaving the Germans cut off fromcommunication among themselves. All traffic and business ceased as if bymagic, all customary activities were put aside and, with the firstclangour of the bells, the whole population poured into the streets andsurged towards Boston Common by converging avenues, singing as they went.
Already a hundred thousand citizens were packed within this greatenclosure, and guarding them were three thousand German, foot soldiersand a thousand horsemen in formidable groups, with rifles and machineguns ready--before the State House, before the Soldiers' Monument, alongTremont Street and Boylston Street and at other strategic points. Neverin the history of the world had an unarmed, untrained mob prevailed oversuch a body of disciplined troops. The very thought was madness. Andyet--
Hark! That roar of voices in the Public Gardens! What is it? A bandplaying in the distance? Who ordered a band to play? German officersshout harsh commands. "Back!" "Stand back!" "Stop this pushing of thecrowd!" "_Mein Gott!_ Those women and children will be trampled by thehorses!"
Alas, that is true! Once more the cause of American liberty requires thatBoston Common be hallowed by American blood. The people of this NewEngland city are tired of German rule. They want their city forthemselves and are going to take it. Guns or not, soldiers or not, theyare going to take their city.
Listen! They are coming! Six hundred thousand strong in dense masses thatchoke every thoroughfare from wall to wall the citizens of Boston, womenand children with the men, are coming! And singing!
"Hurrah! Hurrah! We sound the jubilee! Hurrah! Hurrah! The flag that set us free."
They are practically unarmed, although some of the men carry shot-guns,pistols, rifles, clubs, stones; but they know these will avail littleagainst murderous machine guns. They know they must find strength intheir weakness and overwhelm the enemy by the sheer weight of theirbodies. They must stun the invaders by their willingness to die. That isthe only real power of this Boston host, their sublime willingness todie.
It is estimated that five thousand of them did die, and ten thousand werewounded, in the first half hour after the German machine guns openedfire. And still the Americans came on in a shouting, surging multitude, asolid sea of bodies with endless rivers of bodies pouring in behind them.It is not so easy to kill forty acres of human bodies, even with machineguns!
Endlessly the Americans came on, hundreds falling, thousands replacingthem, until presently the Germans ceased firing, either in horror at thisincredible sacrifice of life or because their ammunition was exhausted.What chance was there for German ammunition carts to force their waythrough that str
uggling human wall? What chance for the fifteen hundredGerman reserves in Franklin Park to bring relief to their comrades?
At eight o'clock that night Boston began her real Christmas evecelebration. Over the land, over the world the joyful tidings wereflashed. Boston had heard the call of the martyred President and answeredit. The capital of Massachusetts was free. The Stars and Stripes wereonce more waving over the Bunker Hill Monument. Four thousand Germansoldiers were prisoners in Mechanics Hall on Commonwealth Avenue. _Thecitizens of Boston had taken them prisoners with their bare hands!_
This news made an enormous sensation not only in America but throughoutEurope, where Boston's heroism and scorn of death aroused unmeasuredadmiration and led military experts in France and England to make newprophecies regarding the outcome of the German-American war.
"All things are possible," declared a writer in the Paris _Temps_, "for anation fired with a supreme spiritual zeal like that of the JapaneseSamurai. It is simply a question how widely this sacred fire has spreadamong the American people."