For next to our God is our Nation,
And we cherish the honored name,
Of the bravest of all brave armies
Who fought for the Nation's fame."
CHAPTER V
ATLANTIC CITY
O ye, who dwell in youth's inviting bowers,
Waste not, in useless joy, your fleeting hours,
But rather let the tears of sorrow roll,
And sad reflection fill the conscious soul.
For many a jocund spring has passed away,
And many a flower has blossomed to decay;
And human life, still hastening to a close,
Finds in the worthless dust its last repose.
Still the vain world abounds in strife and hate,
And sire and son provoke each other's fate;
And kindred blood by kindred hands is shed,
And vengeance sleeps not—dies not, with the dead.
All nature fades—the garden's treasures fall,
Young bud, and citron ripe—all perish—all.
—From the Persian.
"The excessive heat of the summer of 1921 made it the first impulse of travelers to plunge straight into the cool, kindly ocean, where they could wade and bathe in the surf, sprawl for hours in the sand, or indulge in races and various games along the beach."
One is greatly impressed with the vast numbers of resorts on the Atlantic coast. All along the Jersey shore from Bar Harbor to Cape May you will find it almost as thickly settled as a town. Here along this coast an amazing degree of congestion exists. You will marvel to see all along the beach from Sandy Hook, fifty miles of crowded street, of hotels, and houses, and behind these still others. How this vast seaside population thrills one, bringing visions of the "vastness and wealth of teeming millions" of this great nation of ours. One author says, and with truth, that Atlantic City could accommodate all of France and still have room for more while Asbury Park would furnish ample room as a seaside resort for Belgium and Holland.
Atlantic City, known throughout the world as a great all-the- year resort, is situated upon Absecon Island off the Jersey coast. Absecon is an Indian name given to this island, meaning "Place of Swans." Great flocks of these graceful birds are said to have frequented this spot, where they fed on clams and oysters. The swans have long since gone, their place being taken by less graceful and more richly attired birds, that at stated times flock there in vast numbers. Its close proximity to the large eastern centers of population give it an unrivaled location. The climate is made equable by the Gulf Stream. It is much warmer here in winter than at New York or Philadelphia and weather records show sixty-two per cent sunshine. Motorists visit the seashore metropolis by tens of thousands in all seasons of the year.
Atlantic City has one thousand two hundred hotels and boarding houses to meet every purse and entertains twenty million people annually, the transient population reaching four hundred thousand in August and never being less than fifty thousand.
For six miles along one of the finest bathing beaches on the Atlantic seaboard extends the world-famed board walk, sixty feet wide, topped with planking and built upon a steel and concrete foundation, where promenade health and recreation seekers from all parts of America and foreign climes. There are four great piers varying in length from one thousand to three thousand feet, with auditoriums and all kinds of amusements which are as varied as the visitors are versatile. The shops of the board walk are one of its most attractive features.