“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: