Wealthy, but without funds, many of the passengers gave jewelry to the stewards and other employees of the steamship as the tips which they assumed were expected even in times of stress.  The crew took them apologetically, some said they were content to take only the thanks of the passengers.  One woman of wealth and social position, without money, and having lost her check book with her baggage, as had many others of the passengers, gave a pair of valuable bracelets to her steward with the request that he give them to his wife.  She gave a hat—­the only one she managed to take with her on her flight from Switzerland—­to her stewardess.

The statue of Liberty never looked so beautiful to a party of Americans before.  The strains of the Star Spangled Banner, as they echoed over the waters of the bay, were never sweeter nor more inspiring.  As the Philadelphia approached quarrantine, the notes of the American anthem swelled until, as she slowed down to await the coming of the physicians and customs officials, it rose to a great crescendo which fell upon the ears of all within many hundred yards and brought an answering chorus from the throngs who waited to extend their hands to relatives and friends.

There was prophecy in the minds of men and women aboard that ship.  Some of them had been brought into actual contact with the war; others very near it.  In the minds of all was the vision that liberty, enlightenment and all the fruits of progress were threatened; that if they were to be saved, somehow, this land typified the spirit of succor; somehow the aid was to proceed from here.

Liberty never had a more cherished meaning to men of this Republic.  In the minds of many the conviction had taken root, that if autocracy and absolute monarchy were to be overthrown; that “government of the people, by the people, for the people” should “not perish from the earth,” it would eventually require from America that supreme sacrifice in devotion and blood that at periods in the growth and development of nations, is their last resort against the menace of external attack, and, regardless of the reflections of theorists and philosophers, the best and surest guarantee of their longevity; that the principles upon which they were builded were something more than mere words, hollow platitudes, meaning nothing, worthy of nothing, inspiring nothing.  It was the dawning of a day; new and strange in its requirements of America whose isolation and policy, as bequeathed by the fathers, had kept it aloof from the bickerings and quarrels of the nations that composed the “Armed Camp” of Europe, during which, as subsequent events proved, the blood of the Caucasian and the Negro would upon many a hard fought pass; many a smoking trench in the battle zone of Europe, run together in one rivulet of departing life, for the guarantee of liberty throughout all the earth, and the establishment of justice at its uttermost bounds and ends.

CHAPTER IV