“(3) To buy only two dresses a year, the value of said dresses not to exceed sixty dollars, and to contribute the amount thus saved (from an average estimated allowance) to the Women’s National War Fund.
“(4) To forego all entertaining at restaurants, all formal dinner and luncheon parties and to contribute the amount thus saved (from an average estimated allowance) to the Women’s National War Fund.
“(5) To abstain from cocktails, highballs and all expensive wines, also from cigarettes, to influence husbands, fathers, brothers, sons and men friends to do the same, and to contribute the amount thus saved to the Women’s National War Fund.
“(6) To keep this pledge until the invader has been driven from the soil of free America.”
I may mention that Mrs. Harriot Stanton Blatch, in urging her sister women at various mass meetings to sign this pledge, made the impressive estimate that, by practising these economies during a two years’ war, a hundred thousand well-to-do American women might save a thousand million dollars.
Other American women, under the leadership of Mrs. Mary Logan Tucker, daughter of General John A. Logan, prepared themselves for active field service at women’s military camps, in several states, where they were instructed in bandage making, first-aid service, signalling and the use of small arms.
As weeks passed the national spirit grew stronger, stimulated by rousing speeches of Roosevelt, Russell and Bryan and fanned into full flame by Boston’s immortal achievement on December 24, 1921. On that day, by authorisation of General von Beseler, commanding the German force of occupation, a great crowd had gathered on Boston Common for a Christmas tree celebration with a distribution of food and toys for the poor of the city. In the Public Gardens near the statue of George Washington, Billy Sunday was making an address when suddenly, on the stroke of five, the bell in the old Park Street church and then the bells in all the churches of Boston began to toll.
It was a signal for an uprising of the people and was answered in a way that will fill a proud page of American history so long as human courage and love of liberty are honoured upon earth. In an instant every telephone wire in the city went dead, leaving the Germans cut off from communication among themselves. All traffic and business ceased as if by magic, all customary activities were put aside and, with the first clangour of the bells, the whole population poured into the streets and surged towards Boston Common by converging avenues, singing as they went.
Already a hundred thousand citizens were packed within this great enclosure, and guarding them were three thousand German, foot soldiers and a thousand horsemen in formidable groups, with rifles and machine guns ready—before the State House, before the Soldiers’ Monument, along Tremont Street and Boylston Street and at other strategic points. Never in the history of the world had an unarmed, untrained mob prevailed over such a body of disciplined troops. The very thought was madness. And yet—
Hark! That roar of voices in the Public Gardens! What is it? A band playing in the distance? Who ordered a band to play? German officers shout harsh commands. “Back!” “Stand back!” “Stop this pushing of the crowd!” “Mein Gott! Those women and children will be trampled by the horses!”