Is it any wonder that the populace responded as it did?
V
New York
On Monday morning, June 13, Lindbergh rose at dawn and reached the Mayflower Hotel at 6:45 a.m. for breakfast with the National Aeronautical Association, which conferred a life membership upon him.
He reached Bolling Field outside Washington at about 7:30 a.m. Here rose the only incident to mar his otherwise flawless happiness in the welcome he had received. His plane refused to “mote.” It didn’t actually rebel. But there was sufficient irregularity in its engine to discourage him from risking delay when New York City was almost every minute voicing its impatience that he hurry to the celebration awaiting him there. A pursuit plane was quickly obtained from an army field and he was soon in the air with his escort of more than a score of ships.
The course of the group led them over Baltimore, Wilmington and Philadelphia. Eyewitnesses later reported that demonstrations took place at every one of these places as the air cavalcade went by. Of course those in the planes, thousands of feet in the air and deafened by the roar of their motors, heard nothing of the bells and whistles that saluted them as they passed.
Lindbergh arrived at Mitchel Field about noon. As he had flown in a land plane and was to be met in the lower harbor by the mayor’s yacht, he had to make a quick change to an amphibian. This ship happened to be the San Francisco which had but recently returned from her “goodwill” flight to South America.
She took off from dry land and a few minutes later volplaned down to the water just above the Narrows.
Here a sight met Lindbergh’s eyes that old harbor inhabitants declare was absolutely without precedent in the marine annals of New York. Even the famous Hudson-Fulton Exposition with its vast water parades and maneuvers was exceeded.
In the sparkling sunshine of a perfect June morning was gathered half a thousand vessels of every kind and description. Excursion boats, yachts, tugs, motor boats, launches, fireboats, even dredges, formed the spectacular array of shipping gathered to meet the man who had made the proudest of surface craft, the ocean liner, a back number on the sea.
A police launch swung up to the San Francisco and took Lindbergh aboard. He was brought to the Macom, yacht of the Mayor of New York, amid a deafening chorus of whistles. Indeed, so great was the din that conversation among the welcoming committees was quite impossible and remained so throughout the hour’s voyage to the Battery.
As the Macom moved forward the huge disorderly fleet of crowding vessels swung into rough column behind her. Massive ocean going tugs and fireboats clung close aboard to guard her from too curious craft who sought to wedge their way in toward the yacht for a better look at the bareheaded boy standing atop her pilot house.
As in Washington, the air was well filled with planes. Their motors’ roar lent a sort of solemn undertone to the shrieking chorus of whistles and sirens.
There was an interview below decks. It was not very successful. The whistles made too much noise and Lindbergh very properly refused to discuss his “feelings,” which are meat and drink to the writing man.
It was estimated that 300,000 people were massed in the vicinity of the Battery when the Macom hove alongside. Lining the streets clear to Central Park was a multitude that was variously estimated from 3,000,000 to 4,500,000. Scores of people were in their places before eight a.m. on upper Fifth Avenue. Lindbergh did not pass them until three p.m. Traffic was disrupted. Police control was strained to its utmost.
As evidence of the almost unanimous turnout for the occasion, the Police Department of the City issued special instructions to all citizens about leaving their houses protected against thieves, something that hadn’t been done for a generation.
When the cavalcade with Lindbergh leading started up Broadway there came the famous New York “snow storm” consisting of a myriad paper bits and confetti streamers floating downward from the skyscrapers. Photographs do scant justice to the spectacle.
At the City Hall Mayor Walker expressed the city’s sentiments with a felicity that deserves their record here. He spoke more informally than most had spoken in Washington; by the same token he echoed through his easily forgivable eloquence much that the inarticulate thousands waiting without the lines would like to have said.
He struck right at the heart of things when he began:
“Let me dispense with any unnecessary official side or function, Colonel, by telling you that if you have prepared yourself with any letters of introduction to New York City they are not necessary.
“Everybody all over the world, in every language, has been telling you and the world about yourself. You have been told time after time where you were born, where you went to school, and that you have done the supernatural thing of an air flight from New York to Paris. I am satisfied that you have become convinced of it by this time.
“And it is not my purpose to reiterate any of the wonderful things that have been so beautifully spoken and written about you and your triumphal ride across the ocean. But while it has become almost axiomatic, it sometimes seems prosaic to refer to you as a great diplomat, because after your superhuman adventure, by your modesty, by your grace, by your gentlemanly American conduct, you have left no doubt of that. But the one thing that occurs to me that has been overlooked in all the observations that have been made of you is that you are a great grammarian, and that you have given added significance and a deeper definition to the word ‘we.’
“We have heard, and we are familiar
