"As each company came up from the subway the friends and relatives were allowed to go through the lines, and, while the boys stood still in ranks, but at ease, their kinsfolk were allowed to take them in their arms and tell them really and truly, in close-up fashion, what they thought about having them back. "When the entire regiment was in the Armory, the civilians in the gallery broke all bounds. They weren't going to stay up there while their heroes were down below on the drill-floor! Not they! They swarmed past the police and depot battalion and so jammed the floor that it was impossible for the tired Black Buddy even to sit down. Most of the boys had to take their chicken dinner--served by colored girls, and the chow, incidentally, from Delmonico's--standing up with arms about them and kisses punctuating assaults upon the plates. "'Some chow, hey Buddy?' would be heard. "'Pretty bon.' You'd get the answer. 'I'd like to have beaucoup more of this chicken.' There was noticeable a sprinkling of French words in the conversation of the Old 15th, and, indeed, some of them spoke it fluently. "'Sam told me,' one girl was heard to say, 'that he killed nineteen of them Germans all his own self, but nobody saw him and so he didn't get that Cross doo Gare.'" Mustering out commenced at Camp Upton the following day. Thus ended the service of the 369th. Their deeds are emblazoned on the roll of honor. Sons and grandsons of slaves, welcomed by the plaudits of the second largest city in the world. What a record of progress in a trifle over half a century of freedom. What an augury of promise for the future of the colored race, and what an augury for the world freedom which they helped to create, and, overshadowing all else, WHAT an object lesson it should be to our country at large: east, west, north, south, that, "One touch of nature makes 'all men' kin." That in her opinion and treatment of her faithful, loyal black citizens; niggardly, parsimonious, grudging and half-heartedly, how shameful she has been, how great has been her sin; forgetting; or uncaring, even as Pharoh of old, that: "God omnipotent liveth," and that "He is a JUST and a vengeful God!" New York's welcome to her returning Negro boys was fairly typical of similar scenes all over the country. Chicago gave a tremendous ovation to the heroes of the old 8th Infantry. In Washington, Cleveland, and many other cities were great parades and receptions when theirs came home. In hundreds of smaller towns and hamlets the demonstrations were repeated in miniature. CHAPTER XXX. RECONSTRUCTION AND THE NEGRO BY JULIUS ROSENWALD, PRESIDENT SEARS, ROEBUCK & CO, AND TRUSTEE OF TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE--A PLEA FOR INDUSTRIAL OPPORTUNITY FOR THE NEGRO--TRIBUTE TO NEGRO AS SOLDIER AND CIVILIAN--DUTY OF WHITES POINTED OUT--BUSINESS LEADER AND PHILANTHROPIST SOUNDS KEYNOTE.