Part 12

“We of the press rub elbows with all manner of mankind. We see much of good but we see much of self-seeking, of sordid motive, as we sit in the wings watching the world’s procession pass across the stage. If it is true that through our contacts we are sprinkled with a coating of the dry dust of cynicism, that dust was blown away in a breath, as it were, when our professional brethren who greeted you overseas broadcast the news of your peerless exploit. To Americans it brought a spontaneous feeling of pride that you were of their nationality.

“The whole world was carried off its feet by an accomplishment so daring, so masterful in execution, so superb in achievement, by the picture presented of that onrushing chariot of dauntless youth, flashing across uncharted heavens straight through the storm’s barrage.

“But if the press, with such an inspiration, performed its mission well, it found equal inspiration. It performed as fine a mission in chronicling the subsequent conduct of our young Ambassador of Good Will. His words and bearing dissipated vapors of misunderstanding. He personified, to a Europe amazed at the revelation, the real spirit of America.

“The press should be proud then, if in telling the story of this later phase in the career of the American boy, it brought to the peoples of the world a new realization that clean living, clean thinking, fair play and sportsmanship, modesty of speech and manner, faith in a mother’s prayers, have a front page news value intriguing imagination and inviting emulation, and are still potent as fundamentals of success.”

Postmaster General New then stepped forward and gave Lindbergh the first special air mail stamp. As he handed it to the flier he said:

“It is as a pilot in the service of the Air Mail that I greet you. There is no public service devoted to the peace time of the public whose past and present are attended by the romance that are attached to the history of the Post Office Department of the United States.

“From the single couriers of the early days, who followed the uncertain trails through wood and fen on horseback and on foot, the picturesque riders of the pony express of a later day, who risked their lives at the hands of savage foes in the wilderness, the drivers who serve amid the rigors of the frozen North with dog teams and sleds, to those intrepid pilots who pierce the night with the air mail and of whom you are a worthy representative, the whole story is set in an atmosphere of most engaging romance.

“It has no titles to bestow--no medal it can add to those that have been given in recognition of your splendid achievement. There is one thing, however, it can do that will everywhere be regarded as most appropriate. It has issued a stamp designed for special use with the air mail which bears your name and a representation of the other member of that very limited partnership in which you made your now famous journey across seas. It is the first time a stamp has been issued in honor of a man still living--a distinction which you have worthily won.

“It is my great pleasure to be privileged to present to you, and to the mother who gave you to this service, the first two copies of this issue as the best evidence of the enduring regard of the Post Office Department of the United States.”

These speeches are quoted because better than almost any other capturable entity of those days they reflect the wide scope of the effect Lindbergh’s success had on both governmental and business routine. Surely it is difficult to conceive of a military victor shaking so many foundations, no matter what the might of his mailed fist.

Secretary of State Kellogg next presented Lindbergh with a memorial volume consisting of a compilation of diplomatic exchanges between the State Department and the Foreign Offices of the world in connection with the flight. His words lined in a little more of the bewildering picture of the world’s admiration enfolding before Lindbergh’s frankly astonished gaze.

“Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh,” he slowly and ponderously began, staring hard at the object of his eulogy. “On May 20th and 21st, 1927, the world was electrified by the news of your non-stop flight from New York to Paris. It was a marvelous accomplishment requiring the highest courage, skill and self-reliance. Probably no act of a single individual in our day has ever aroused such universal enthusiasm and admiration. Your great deed is a mile-stone marking scientific advancement.

“You have been congratulated by Kings and Presidents. You have listened to the plaudits of thousands and thousands in Europe and you know the tributes which have been justly paid to you by millions more. You do not now realize the thousands who have expressed their congratulations in letters and telegrams. I have had printed in this little volume only the official telegrams which passed through the Department of State and I take pleasure in presenting to you this volume in commemoration of your epochal achievement.

“Along the highway of human progress, as we look back over the last half century we marvel at the progress in science, the arts and invention. Truly this is a marvelous age and your daring feat will pass into the pages of history.”

Then came Dr. Charles G. Abbott, Acting Secretary of the Smithsonian Institute who informed Lindbergh that the Institute had decided to award him the Langley “Medal of Pioneers.” This honor has in the past been bestowed upon a small but distinguished group such as Orville Wright, Glenn H. Curtiss and Gustave Eiffel. Thus was added to the tribute of press and state the commendation of one of the oldest and finest scientific bodies in the world.

Followed next a medley of messages from special organizations. Greetings from cities touched by Lindbergh in his historic flight from San Diego to Paris were read. St. Louis sent a moving reminder that her people were “waiting for you now impatiently ... waiting since that gray morning when you launched out over the clouds and the sea for Paris.”

There was one from the British Government, something almost without precedent when it is considered that its recipient was a private citizen on a private enterprise. The official bearer read:

“I have been desired by the British Government to express to Colonel Lindbergh on this occasion in behalf of all the people of Great Britain their warm congratulations on the safe return home after his historic flight across the Atlantic. The British people regard Colonel Lindbergh with special admiration and affection not only for his great courage and resource, but also for his equally great modesty in success and generosity in giving their due to other aviators who have gone before.”

At the end of this bewildering array of orations and gifts the speaker of the evening was announced. One has only to put oneself in Lindbergh’s place after reading some of the eloquence listed above to admire the moral courage it took to face that huge audience and once more speak with directness and precision of the things nearest his heart--things often furthest from the burden of the discourse:

“I want to express my appreciation of the reception I’ve met in America and the welcome I have received here tonight.” It was plain the flier was going to cover another field than the infinitely delicate one he had touched earlier in the day. “When I landed at Le Bourget a few weeks ago, I landed with the expectancy and hope of being able to see Europe. It was the first time I had ever been abroad. I had seen a number of interesting things when I flew over Ireland and Southern England and France. I had only been gone from America two days or a little less, and I wasn’t in any particular hurry to get back.

“But by the time I had been in France a week, Belgium a day and England two or three days--by that time I had opened several cables from America and talked with three Ambassadors and their attachés and found that it didn’t make much difference whether I wanted to stay or not: and while I was informed that it was not necessarily an order to come back home, there was a battleship waiting for me.

“The Ambassador said this wasn’t an order, but advice,” the aviator added.

“So on June 4 I sailed on the _Memphis_ from Cherbourg and this morning as I came up the Potomac I wasn’t very sorry that I had listened to it.

“There were several things I saw in Europe that are of interest to American aviation. All Europe looks on our air mail service with reverence. There is nothing like it anywhere abroad.

“But, whereas we have airlines, they have passenger lines. All Europe is covered with a network of lines carrying passengers between all the big cities. Now it is up to us to create and develop passenger lines that compare with our mail routes. For this we have natural advantages in the great distances here that lend themselves to rapid transportation by air. Moreover, we can make these long trips without the inconvenience of passing over international boundaries.

“The question comes up, ‘Why has Europe got ahead of us in commercial airlines?’ The reason is, of course, that the Governments over there give subsidies. I don’t think we want any subsidies over here. Of course, if we had them they would create passenger lines overnight, so to speak, but in the long run the airlines, the distance they covered and the routes would be controlled entirely by the subsidies.

“What we need now more than any other one thing is a series of airports in every city and town throughout the United States. Given these airports, in a very few years the nations of Europe would be looking toward our passenger lines as they now look at our mail routes.”

Sunday was another full day. Under able guidance of the Chief Executive, Lindbergh did the things every good American would expect him to do. And, as one who has seen the lad at close range, we can say that he did them gladly and with profound appreciation for the privilege of doing them. After you come to know him you find out that’s the kind he is.

He went to church with President and Mrs. Coolidge. Accompanied by his mother he laid a wreath upon the tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the great memorial amphitheatre in Arlington Cemetery. He drove to Georgetown and visited the wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital. He attended a celebration in honor of the 150th anniversary of the American flag, for which services were held on the steps of the Capitol and presided over by Charles Evans Hughes.

It was at this last ceremony that Lindbergh received the Cross of Honor. His response to the honor was brief and typically to the point. He declared that credit for his flight should “not go to the pilot alone but to American science and genius which had given years of study to the advancement of aeronautics.”

“Some things should be taken into consideration in connection with our flight that have not heretofore been given due weight. That is just what made this flight possible. It was not the act of a single pilot. It was the culmination of twenty years of aeronautical research and the assembling together of all that was practicable and best in American aviation. It represented American industry.

“In addition to this consideration should be given the scientific researches that have been in progress for countless centuries. All of this should have consideration in apportioning credit for the flight. Credit should go not alone to the pilot, but to the other factors that I have briefly enumerated. I thank you.”

This was the day well worthy of what Lindbergh had done and what he stood for. And again, by the spiritual values it comprised, it struck the inspirational note which had dominated almost everything the lad has done or said from the moment of his landing at Le Bourget to the moment of this writing.

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 “good-will” 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 bare-headed 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 with, the editorial ‘we,’ but not until you arrived in Paris did we learn of the aeronautical ‘we.’ Now you have given to the world a flying pronoun.

“That ‘we’ that you used was perhaps the only word that would have suited the occasion and the great accomplishment that was yours. That all-inclusive word ‘we’ was quite right, because you were not all alone in the solitude of the sky and the sea, because every American heart, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, was beating for you. Every American, every soul throughout the world, was riding with you in spirit, urging you on and cheering you on to the great accomplishment that is yours.

“That ‘we’ was a vindication of the courage, of the intelligence, of the confidence and the hopes of Nungesser and Coli, now only alive in the prayers and the hearts of the people of the entire world. That ‘we’ that you coined was well used, because it gave an added significance and additional emphasis to the greatest of any and all ranks, the word of faith, and turned the hearts of all the people of the civilized world to your glorious mother, whose spirit was your spirit, whose confidence was your confidence, and whose pride was your pride; the ‘we’ that includes all that has made the entire world stand and gasp at your great feat, and that ‘we’ also sent out to the world another message and brought happiness to the people of America, and admiration and additional popularity for America and Americans by all the peoples of the European countries.

“Colonel Lindbergh, on this very platform are the diplomatic corps, the diplomatic representatives of all the countries of the civilized world; but before you and around you are the peoples themselves of all the countries of the civilized world, foregathered in this city, the greatest cosmopolitan institution in all the world; the peoples who have come from the forty-eight States of the Union and from every country of the civilized world; and here today, as Chief Magistrate of this city, the world city, the gateway to America, the gateway through which peoples from the world have come in the search for liberty and freedom--and have found it--here today let it be written and let it be observed that the Chief Magistrate of this great city, the son of an immigrant, is here to welcome as the world’s greatest hero, another son of an immigrant.

“What more need I call to your attention, in view of the busy life that you have been leading and have the right to expect to lead? What more can we say as we foregather in the streets of this old city? And today, not by the words alone of the Mayor, or the beautifully written words of a scroll, as you stand here I am sure you hear something even more eloquent and glorious. You can hear the heart-beats of six millions of people that live in this the City of New York. And the story they tell is one of pride, is one of admiration for courage and intelligence; is one that has been born out of and is predicated upon the fact that as you went over the ocean you inscribed on the heavens themselves a beautiful rainbow of hope and courage and confidence in mankind.

“Colonel Lindbergh, New York City is yours--I don’t give it to you; you won it. New York not only wants me to tell you of the love and appreciation that it has for your great venture, but is deeply and profoundly grateful for the fact that again you have controverted all the old rules and made new ones of your own, and kind of cast aside temporarily even the weather prophets, and have given us a beautiful day.

“So, just another word of the happiness, the distinction and the pride which the City of New York has today to find you outside this historical building, sitting side by side with your glorious mother, happy to find you both here, that we might have the opportunity and a close-up, to tell you that like the rest of the world--but because we are so much of the world, even with a little greater enthusiasm than you might find in any other place in the world--I congratulate you and welcome you into the world city, that you may look the world in the face.”

Mayor Walker pinned the Medal of Valor upon the lapel of Lindbergh’s coat. Whereupon Lindbergh for the first time gave in some detail his sense of the size of the welcome he had received:

“When I was preparing to leave New York, I was warned that if we landed at Le Bourget we might receive a rather demonstrative reception. After having an hour of Le Bourget I did not believe that anyone in New York had the slightest conception of what we did receive. Again, at Brussels and at London. At London thirteen hundred of the pride of Scotland Yard were lost in the crowd at Croydon as though they had been dropped in the middle of the ocean. With the exception of a few around the car and around the plane, I never saw more than two at any one time.

“At Washington I received a marvelous reception. But at New York I believe that all four put together would be in about just the position of those London bobbies.

“When I landed at Le Bourget I landed looking forward to the pleasure of seeing Europe and the British Isles. I learned to speak of Europe and the British Isles after I landed in London. I had been away from America a little less than two days. I had been very interested in the things I saw while passing over southern England and France, and I was not in any hurry to get back home.

“By the time I had spent about a week in France and a short time in Belgium and England, and had opened a few cables from the United States, I found that I did not have much to say about how long I would stay over there.”

Lindbergh paused for the laughter to subside. This point always tickled people greatly.