In a great crush (the gallery was reserved for German officers, including the Crown Prince) the most distinguished society women in Philadelphia stepped forth smilingly as manikins and displayed on their fair persons the hats, gowns, furs, laces or jewels that they had contributed to the sale. E. T. Stotesbury proved a very efficient auctioneer and large prices were realised.
Mrs. G. G. Meade Large sold baskets of roses at twenty dollars each. Mrs. W. J. Clothier sold three hats for fifty dollars each. Mrs. Walter S. Thomson, said to be pro-German, sold a ball-gown for three hundred dollars. Mrs. E. T. Stotesbury sold one of her diamond tiaras for twenty thousand dollars. Mrs. Edward Crozer, Mrs. Horatio Gates Lloyd and Mrs. Norman MacLeod sold gowns for three hundred dollars each. Mrs. Harry Wain Harrison and Mrs. Robert von Moschzisker sold pieces of lace for a hundred dollars each.
Mrs. A. J. Antelo Devereux, in smart riding costume, sold her fine hunter, led in amid great applause, for two thousand dollars. Mrs. George Q. Horwitz and Mrs. Robert L. Montgomery sold sets of furs for a thousand dollars each. Mrs. Barclay H. Warburton sold her imported touring-car for five thousand dollars. Mrs. Joseph E. Widener sold a set of four bracelets, one of diamonds, one of rubies, one of sapphires, one of emeralds, for fifteen thousand dollars.
The sensation of the afternoon came at the close when Admiral von Tirpitz bought a coat of Russian sables offered by Mrs. John R. Fell for ten thousand dollars, this being followed by a purchase of the Crown Prince, who gave thirty thousand dollars for a rope of pearls belonging to Mrs. J. Kearsley Mitchell.
All of this was briefly recorded in the Philadelphia Press, which had been made the official German organ with daily editions in German and English. The Crown Prince himself selected this paper, I was told, on learning that the author of one of his favourite stories, “The Lady or the Tiger,” by Frank R. Stockton, was once a reporter on the Press.
A few days later at the Wanamaker store on Chestnut Street the Crown Prince figured in an incident that became the subject of international comment and that throws a strange light upon the German character.
It appears that the Crown Prince had become interested in an announcement of the Wanamaker store that half of its profits for one week, amounting to many thousands of dollars, would go to the relief of American soldiers wounded in battle. His Imperial Highness expressed a desire to visit the Wanamaker establishment, and arrived one afternoon at the hour of a widely advertised organ concert that had drawn great crowds. A special feature was to be the Lohengrin wedding march, during the playing of which seven prominent society women, acting on a charitable impulse, had consented to appear arrayed as bridesmaids and one of them as a bride.
The Crown Prince and his staff, in brilliant uniforms, entered the vast rotunda packed with men and women, just as this interesting ceremony was beginning and took places reserved for them as conquerors, near the great bronze eagle on its granite pedestal that faces the spot where William H. Taft dedicated the building in December, 1911.
A hush fell over the assembly as Dr. Irvin J. Morgan at his gilded height struck the inspiring chords, and a moment later the wedding procession entered, led by two white-clad pages, and moved slowly across the white gallery, Mrs. Angier B. Duke (dressed as the bride), Mrs. Victor C. Mather, Mrs. A. J. Drexel Biddle, Jr., Mrs. Gurnee Munn, Mrs. Oliver E. Cromwell, Miss Eleanor B. Hopkins and Mrs. George Wharton Pepper, Jr., a tall and willowy auburn beauty and a bride herself only a few months before, while Wagner’s immortal tones pealed through the marble arches.
As the music ceased one of the German officers, in accordance with a prearranged plan, nodded to his aides, who stepped forward and spread a German flag over the American eagle. At the same moment the officer waved his hand towards the organ loft, as a signal for Dr. Morgan to obey his instructions and play “The Watch on the Rhine.”