Daily News from New York, New York • 3

9, 1819. CLOUDS AND SUN GREETS OUR FIRST SOLDIER THE HERO COMES! i4LL CUSTOMARY FEATHERS WERE STUCK IN HIS HAT Ritual of Welcome Observed in Usual Unimaginative Way, Says Hammond EPISODE SO STUPENDOUS By PERCY HAMMOND. Imminent dramatic critic and war correspondent ol the Chicago Tribune in New York to write for the Tribune and THE Miws. Well, the First American- Soldier reached v. i rrlJ life his home shores yesterday, and after hav PINK AND GOLD HOTEL SUITE AT, I LAST HIS REFUGE "One Wonders of What He is Thinking' Says Emi- nent Writer 'TWAS A DAY OF DAYS have committed to memory he reads with' unmistakable sincerity, telling how much the President and ho are glad that they chose Pershing to command the American forces in Europe.

Mr. Baker gives him a large scroll, which is his commission as geneial in the regular army, and Pershing tosses it over to a ten year-old boy with fair, curly hair, who in a front seat, and is his small son. A Senator from New York, Mr. Wads worth, speaks honestly and gracefully for the Senate Committee on 'Military Affairs, and a Congressman, a Mr. Mondell, enthuses 'with considerable embarassment.

Mr. McAdoo, the whilom Secretary of the Treasury, looks the General in the eyes and talks to him as man to man in the most real speech of the ceremonial, and a handsome- matron from Missouri, her arms full of flags and roses, is pleasantly inaudible in an address of welcome from, St. Louis. I would rather have heard what Pershing ing the customary feathers stuck in his hat, all day long he is now thinking over in the pink and gold suite of the Waldorf-Astoria. The ritual of welcome observed by the nation and the municipality was the usual unimaginative ceremopy involving music by brass bands, mediocre eloquence, steam whistles, cannon, feasting and a song or two.

There was nothing about it, however, to subtract from the" dignity which the general and his armies have added to history, and if it was not, in substance, commensurate with so significant a world episode, it is because th: episode was, so stupendous rather than that human vision is so small and uninspired. So the Soldier in his pink and gold suite is probably taking stock of his first day at home. He may be thinking of the troops of heroes undistinguished, left in the bleak graveyards of the Marne and the Argonne; of the battles fought singly by him in the said to Foch in France last May than what I suspect that he talks better, if more pro-' fanely, in great crises than he does in small ceremonials, with Baker around. I heard was councils of the Allies. And hs may be wondering, as hundreds of less important soldiers have wondered, if those who line the streets to watch in silence the homecoming processions really know what it was aabout.

BROADWAY AND FULTON STREET. THe scene pictures here fives some little idea of the great crowd that thronged the streets through which the Pershing entourage rode. (Exclusive photos by our own photographer) The Leviathan, German-built and the him speak, with the President, to American near Chaumont at Christmas, and he was more platitudinous than "Bartlett'a Quotations," and so he was today. But, once, to my knowledge, In a heart to heart talk ith American Germans In "Paris, he said things that were no honest and he said them so sincerely that, when he told us we could not print them, we wished for his sake that we could. Pershing, I think, knowa as much about the war as the doctors and the nurses and the grave diggers do.

I am aure that he has heard the moans and that he hua seen the snouting arteries, tho torn viscera, the blinded eyes, the thirst, the hunger, the filth, the pride, the vermin, the desperation, the burial without "taps." The greatest music that was ever written is known ta He was told to win the war, and he did it, and if bunting and pink and gold suites and whistles and soft words and looks do not reward him for his efforts he will be able to get along. But. believe me. he ia thinking about it greatest of the transports, 'was punctual at Quarantine, where the Secretary of War and his party waited at 7.30 on the destroyer Blakcly. I have reported several similar spectacular events, and I have noted that always the sun breaks out at the right instant, en-haloing the principal figure.

The big ship locked like a shapebss cloud as she meandered cautiously in the channel through the early morning murk which was barely penetrable. Suddenly the sun shone through an azure slit in the sky and I give you my word that Belasco could have done no better. There was Pershing on the bridge and the golden rays fell right upon him. On the Blakely with the War Minister were Former Senator and Mrs. Warren, the General's parents-in-law, and his sisters.

Miss Pershing and Mrs. Butler. They waved their kerchiefs to him and he recognized 1 them in a minute. Secretary Baker saw the tears on the General's cheek, as every one did, and he said: "This is the greatest emotional moment of the war!" which is something for the Secretary to say about a mere war. When the Leviathan reached the huge Jnd erstwhile Hamburg-American pier, there were more brigadiers present than there were scribes and photographers.

There was also an abundance of Major-Generals, as well as General March, the Chit f-of-Staff, who, it has been eaid by the whisperers, has had differences with Gen. Pershing. They seemed to like each other yesterday when they shook hands on the gangplank. Among the large aggregate of little things noticed by your correspondent was 1 that Gen. Pershing and his wore the Sam Brown belts which were sanctioned in Europe by him, but which were forbidden in America by Gen.

March. A sort of dais, covered with the traditional bunting, had been arranged in one of the large corridors of the pier, and to that elevation the Secretary of War escorted Gen. Pershing. There were probably 200 people around not counting bands and soldiers. Mr.

Baker is, after all, in appearance and personality, the antithesis of a war lord, and, with his funny little brown hat and pacific figure and visage, he is a sort of asterisk in the punctuation of war beside the general, who is the- smartest of soldiers (too smart, some of his friends say). Mr. Baker looks like Defeat confronting Victory. The speech the Secretary of War might toninght in the pink and gold suite in the aiaon -Astoria. HONORED FOR THEIR COURAGE, TJIESE WOMEN WILL PARADE WITH-FIRST ''I '3 4'- i-v 7 jj r--, rx'- his nieces overseas to aid the boys fighting there, and there were others at home who made sacrifices and did valiant work.

-But when the first D.vision parades here tomorrow only a certain number of women identified with work in the sectors where the First made its wonderful record will be permitted to march with the boys khaki. At the left is Miss Ethel C. Towance, who, for her work with the First Division in the canteen service, was cited. She was a field secretary Vi' A' ef her UiaFn J' Llick, daughter of the late Dr. Gulick and founder of the Camp Fire Girl.

She served with the First for nearly a- year. Next is Miss Mary N. Arrowsmith, another worker, who, with sleeves rolled np, served of the First with coffee and doughnuts and the.like.- Then there is Miss ilajone Skeldmg, who was with the First right up to the armistice and then folio wcJ thA into the zsneof occupation. At the right is Miss Gertrude Fay, of BryV Mawr, who marched into Coblenx jtst behind Parkjr. by ZaUroaUonni.