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THE WORLD: SUNDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1916. BAY A FAIRYLAND OF LIGHT WITH LIBERTY FOR ITS CENTRAL GE[[page cut off]] like a great mass of crystal, while in the further distance the Pulitzer Building dome, with its gold and its red lights, was plainly visible from the river. Gloom Hid Statue Until Light Flashed. When the battery was reached darkness had descended. The Sperry searchlight, far over in Brooklyn, suddenly shot its rays over housetops and shipmasts and illumined the path of the official party. Far down the harbor, off Bedloe's Island, two more battleships, the Texas and the New York, stood guard, each a fairy ship of light, the Texas particularly noticeable because of her red-light "battle efficiency" pennant, gleaming at the masthead. In the gloom the statue had all but disappeared. Knowledge of its whereabouts was necessary before one could make it out. Then it could be seen, a mere splotch of black against the very deep gray of the western sky. The lines of the unilluminated ships disappeared. Green and red lights twinkled and harbor craft dashed to and fro, some with sighseers, some with officials, some merely freight boats. Only where the battleships lay and where the beam from the Sperry light shone was there any radiance. The Mayflower passed between the two battleships and Governor's Island, then, far beyond, slowly turned and made her way back between the battleships and Bedloe's Island. The San Francisco followed her, the great crowd on board gazing in expectancy, first at the President's yacht and then at the point where the statue was known to be. Ruth Law's Aeroplane, Flying Spark, Hovering About Statue Suddenly another sight attracted general attention. A tiny light appeared over the yacht, moving rapidly toward the statue. Then the gleam from the Brooklyn searchlight caught this light and the lines of Miss Law's aeroplane could be distinctly seen as she circled about Bedloe's, apparently waiting for the signal. It was only a minute or so after 5.30 then and the aeroplane was turned toward the north, its light being lost sight of by the watching crowds. At greatly diminished speed the Mayflower steamed down until it lay directly off Bedloe's Island. The darkness of night had come. The statue could not be seen at all. Then, two red rockets went up from the Mayflower. Instantly the lights on the illuminated ships were put out. While, far in the background, looking toward New York, the checker boards of light showed where the buildings were, practically nothing else could be seen. When Liberty Burst From Darkness But again Miss Law took the centre of the stage, swooping down again toward the statue. As she sailed aloft at a height of about 700 feet, it seemed she might be carrying a spark from the yacht to the statue and half of the people who watched felt that when she was directly over Liberty, the new lights would beam forth. It was too soon, however, or else the signal from the Mayflowers was not given on time. Miss Law had sailed away again and was over Governor's Island, dimly discernible in the pale moonlight, when the event of the day occurred. Here and there along the Jersey shore was a single dim light of two, but behind Liberty was inky blackness. Not even the shore line of the little island could be seen. For all one could see nothing was there, no island, no symbol. Then, at the touch of a button, all this was changed. The Statue of Liberty stood out against this black background, a heroic figure of green on a yellow pedestal, holding aloft a giant torch of yellow light that shed its rays downward on the water and outward toward the sea. Heroic Stage Setting. It looked like an idealized Hippodrome spectacle. It was a stage setting in reality. There was an attempt at cheering on the San Francisco, but few seemed to feel like cheering. All were looking at a new Liberty, a more glorified Liberty than they had ever known before. The breathless expectancy was succeeded by a breathless admiration for a really beautiful sight. From the deck of the Texas boomed the first gun of the Presidential salute, which the battleships had refrained from firing as the Mayflower passed. Just at that instant, too, there was a loud clap far up in the air toward Governor's Island and Miss Law's plane suddenly shone out in silver against the blue-blackness of the sky. The crowd on the official vessels turned from one spectacle to look upon another equally wonderful, equally beautiful. Following the first burst of silver flame was another detonation, and then across the harbor came Miss Law, far up, with a veritable Niagara of white fire streaming behind her plane and pouring in a silver torrent down on the ships and the waters of the bay. No two-tailed comet ever furnished such a spectacular sight or was greeted with such a round of applause. Wrote "Liberty" in Sky. The silver stream swept on right across to Bedloe's Island, far about the Mayflower and the San Francisco, the tail of this comet brushing through the golden torch of Liberty. And those looking upward saw then that Miss Law's plane carried on the lower surface the word "Liberty" in bright silver lights. Meanwhile every vessel in the harbor and far up the two rivers had been sounding their whistles. A din of sound floated down over the harbor, punctuated every few seconds by the deep boom of the guns of the battleships firing the salute. So great was this noise that the whirring of Miss Law's machine could not be heard. While the battleships remained dark, the Jersey shore was suddenly illuminated. Rockets were fired in half a dozen places at once, and the fireworks display kept up intermittently for half and hour. During the same period, too, all the ships in the neighborhood which had searchlights played them first on this craft and then on that, until the whole harbor seemed alight. The batteries of light focused on Liberty continued to burn steadily through it all. A score of persons on the San Francisco seemed to think these lights were to be turned off sooner or later. Every one who knew better had a busy time explaining that Liberty had been transformed and that each night she would glow as she did then. Even after the tugs and launches had taken the officials off the Mayflower and the San Francisco these persons kept looking back to see if the lights still glowed. The Mayflower and the San Francisco anchored in the harbor, the guests were taken off in tugs and launches and landed at Pier A, where an immense crowd of sightseers had gathered and where automobiles were waiting to take the official party to the Waldorf. It was shortly before 7 o'clock when the President landed and the parade formed. The President and his party left for Washington about midnight. _________________________ Flying in Bright Rain of Fire Ruth Law Thrills Thousands - Little Aviatrice Circles Above Statue With "Liberty" in Electric Letters on Under Plane of Her Machine - Enthusiastic Crowd Blocks Her When She Lands on Governor's Island. Sisters in glory, last night, were Miss Liberty and Miss Ruth Law. Of all those who saluted the great statue, as it was flooded with radiance, was the slender, winsome little queen of the air who paid homage to it most spectacularly. High above the bronze, in the tiny old-fashioned biplane with which she flew from Chicago a couple of weeks ago, Miss Law sped through the night, for all the world like a meteor, with magnesium flares casting waves of golden flame behind her. And on her lower plane, in huge electrically lighted letters that could be discerned clearly from her height of nearly 1,000 feet, she bore the legend L-I-B-E-R-T-Y. While guns roared and whistles shrieked and crowds shouted from the patriotic exaltation that the new vision of the statue created, the little aviatrice raced along overhead, dashing by the image, flying over and around it and giving the multitude of spectators, afloat and ashore, a spectacle that thrilled them through and through. And she gloried in it! A Wonderful Spectacle. "Of all the beautiful scenes I have ever witnessed," she said when she alighted after twenty-five minutes in the air, "this was the most splendid. It is impossible to imagine how wonderful it all looked from above liberty herself, with a soft glow illu-[[page cut off]] to the hangar. She literally had to have a bodyguard to assist her in walking across the field. The crowd followed her, cheering and shouting congratulations and tussling to get near enough to grasp her hand, until she reached the shelter of the hangar. Miss Law went in the air promptly at 5.30. Just before twilight a stiff wind had been blowing. At times it reached a forty-five mile velocity. It was so strong, indeed, that Rusty Bounds and Ripley Bowman, two Government aviation instructors who flew in from Mineola to watch Miss Law's performance, required sixty-three minutes to make the twenty-three mile trip. But the semi-gale didn't deter the little pink-cheeked flyer. "I'm going up whether the wind subsides or not," she said at 4.30. "I hope it quiets down, but nothing like a little breeze is going to spoil this particular evening." The wind had quieted considerably when, an hour later, she sped across the parade grounds and lifted gracefully into the air. It was dark then, and the only light about her machine was a single small incandescent that illumined the faces of her instruments. Switches Controlled Fireworks. On her right hand control lever she had a switch with which to light up the letters which were fastened on the under surface of her lower plane. The word "Liberty" was 28 feet long and three feet wide. On her left control she had another switch which was to set a spark at the proper time, to the magnesium tapes fastened behind the wing. She wore her familiar brown leather coat and gray breeches with puttees. She had on a helmet, but did not wear a mask or even gloves. She wanted to be sure that she could work her extra switches properly, so she kept her fingers free. A few seconds after she left the ground her machine had disappeared into the night. At a height of 750 feet and a distance of a quarter of mile or so the little biplane was invisible, but the roar of its motor could always be heard. As she swung back over the island, climbing, after a preliminary circling about over the bay, the little light on her machine swam into view. "A flying star!" exclaimed every one. And there really could be no better description. You could see that one little light sweeping across the sky at eighty-five miles and hour [[bottom of page cut off]] ried over miles of territory and millions of people. Above the ships, above the statue, above the water of the bay and lower river, the brilliant sign swept along for all to see. Then, after a dash close by Liberty, Miss Law headed up above the city, carrying her message over the massive illuminated buildings at the tip of the town. A turn - a fast flight with the wind down beyond Governor's Island - another swing into the face of the breeze, and then she glided down, touched the ground two are three times with a gentle little bumps, and came to a stop. Army Aviators Praise Her. The crowd swarmed about her, cheering tumultuously, and her husband, Charles Oliver, and half a dozen army aviators rushed forward to grip her hand. It had been a marvellous flight, they told her, a magnificent exhibition. But it didn't turn the little woman's head. "It wasn't very hard," she said. "The only bother I had was that my hands got cold. I had feared that perhaps the letters fastened to the lower plane containing the electric lamps for 'Liberty' might interfere with the performance of my machine. That was an experiment - having something fastened to a plane - that had never been tried before. But the added resistance didn't seem to make any difference. How did the letters look from below? Could they be recognized?" Miss Law was delighted when she heard that her Liberty message was clear and distinct. "I'm glad and happy that everything went off well and that I had a chance to pay honor to Miss Liberty." When she had seen to the stowing away of her little machine in the Government hangar she said she thought she'd put on some feminine clothes and go home. But just then there came for her a special invitation to go to the Presidential dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria, and so she hurried across the river and uptown, beaming like a schoolgirl over the happy prospect. ______________________ Big Buildings Glow, Crowds Cheer as President Passes -- Chief Executive's Journey Uptown From Battery to Waldorf Banquet After Giving Signal That Sets Statue of Liberty Alight a Continuous Ovation. Like piled up bricks of light the downtown skyscrapers glowed and winked at 6.50 o'clock last night when President Wilson, leaving the now effulgent Statue of Liberty behind, came ashore from the Mayflower and with Mrs. Wilson and his party entered an open touring car for the processional to the Waldorf-Astoria. Searchlights everywhere threw their clear beams into the distance, where the eye following, discovered them illuminating flaunting stars and stripes. Five hundred automobiles chugged. Sirens shrieked. Thousands of voices roared cheers in the scintillating, beam [[page cut off]] lace work of the Woolworth tower, stabbed the clouds. Police Escort President's Car. The President's automobile was quickly away. As it sped west through Battery Place a squadron of mounted policemen, their shields and accoutrements dazzling back the glamour of the illuminations, enveloped it in a living cloak. The Ambrose Orphan Asylum Band, in a Fifth Avenue bus, which had been waiting the moment for an hour, blared into action. The automobile of Secretary Daniels followed the President's auto-[[page cut off]] Mitchel - the Mayor was with the President - and other notables. With its fringe of mounted policemen feeling the way through the massed throngs on the streets, the procession proceeded through Battery Place to Broadway - and there it was a sight, for those to whom Lower Broadway with its pyramids of architecture and Andes of masonry is an old story, and for those hitherto it might have been only something to read about. In Battery Place, that sentinel of the bay, the Whitehall Building, was lighted in every window, shining bravely back at the still, white lighted figure of the statue out in the bay. At the head of Whitehall Street, as lighted in every window, shining the President's car swung north into Broadway, the Produce Exchange winked gravely down with every one of its thousand window-eyes, a well of light. The Custom House shone. The Adams Express Company Building, a bit further north, was ablaze. The Hamburg-American Line Building not only was decorated with flags and burning, but its windows also glowed. North on Broadway, through densely packed throngs of cheering men, women and children, the President passed to City Hall Park. There the cavalcade of mounted policemen swung east, pulling the President and the long, winding tail of the parade with it, into City Hall Park. Just ahead, looking down on the City Hall, gay in its buntings, was the Pulitzer Building, the home of The World. Seven stripes of incandescent lights glossed its lofty structure. Its dome, the highest building pinnacle in New York when it was erected, flashed with red and white lights. Even Cheers from Tombs. The parade filed through the park, apparently aimed straight at the Pulitzer Building, but it swung north in Park Row, past the Municipal Building into Lafayette Street. It was just 7.03 o'clock then. All the while the wonder of persons in the autos in the parade constantly grew at the size of the crowds that banked the sidewalks and darkened the lighted windows. The parade continued through Lafayette Street, past the Tombs, where the top galleries housing the "trusties" were crowded with vague forms and from where sounded the faint sound of cheering, to Fourth Street. At Seventh Street moving picture photographers had lighted calcium flares on both sides of Fifth Avenue and the white glare lighted up the district for the block either way - contrasting splendidly with the radiance of the street lamps. Stores Lighted Too. Hearn's in Fourteenth Street was a glory of illumination. The Flatiron Building blazed electricity from every window. Meanwhile, of course, those tow long ribbons of golden light in Fifth Avenue from the temporarily altered bulbs were diffusing a soft glow over the parade headed by the policemen and joined somewhere about the middle by the blaring band of the Orphan Asylum. As the President's auto pushed along it pulled with it a continuous outburst of clapping hands and cheering voices. It was an always fresh beginning and apparently never-ending roar of welcome. It was 7.23 o'clock when the mounted policemen drew up in front of the Waldorf-Astoria. That far-reaching pile was strung with red, white and blue lights - three separate strings of them - and hung with flags and bunting. Its windows on the Thirty-third Street side were dotted, every one, with peering faces and noise-making hands and mouths. In fact, it was a sort of climax of glare, hurrah and crowd that greeted the President when he stepped from his auto at 7.25 o'clock, at the Thirty-third Street entrance of the Waldorf, and , protected by a cordon of uniformed policemen and a score of active and inquisitive Secret Service men, vanished inside. The New York Edison Company not only had contributed a deal of brilliance and scintillance to the occasion but also had provided more than 100 autos in which many of the paraders were accommodated. The crowds were handled admirably by the police, Chief Inspector Schmittberger was in charge, with Inspectors Myers and Dwyer, w[[page cut off at side]] men between them at the [[page cut off at the side]] alone. The reserves from all th[[page cut off at side]] cincts and from outlying di[[page cut off at side]] formed a regular lane of blu[[page cut off at side]] for the Presidential journey fro[[page cut off at side]] Battery to the Waldorf. __________________________ Hyacinth Bulbs 1₵ each 10c per dozen 75c per 100 [[image]] Hyacinths, larger bulbs, 2c each; 20c per dozen; $1.50 per 100. [[page cut off at bottom]]
