In New York and Washington there were receptions and banquets in his honor, and around him gathered high officials of the army and navy and the Government, and men who were leaders in civilian life. It was with impetuous enthusiasm that the people crowded the sidewalks to greet him as he passed along the streets--the worn service uniform, the color of his hair, the calm face that showed exposure to stress and hardships, set in the luxurious leathers of an automobile, surrounded by men so different in personal attire and appearance, marked him as the man they sought. There is something in the man that creates the desire in others to express outwardly their approval of him. At the New York Stock Exchange business was suspended as the members rode him upon their shoulders over the floor of the Exchange where visitors are not allowed. In Washington the House of Representatives stopped debate and the members arose and cheered him when he appeared in the gallery. There were ovations for him at the railroad stations along his way to Fort Oglethorpe, near Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he was mustered out of service. And in the midst of all of these mental-distracting demonstrations Alvin York was put to the test. He was offered a contract that guaranteed him $75,000 to appear in a moving picture play that would be staged in the Argonne in France and would tell the story of his mountain life. There was another proposition of $50,000. There were offers of vaudeville and theatrical engagements that ranged up to $1,000 a week, and totaled many thousands. On these his decision was reached on the instant they were offered. The theater was condemned by the tenets of his church, and all through his youth the ministers of the gospel, whom he had heard, preached against it. The theater in any form was, as he saw it, against the principles of religion to which he had made avowal. Then up to the surface among those who were crowding around him there wormed men who saw in Sergeant York's popularity the opportunity for them to make money for themselves. Some of the propositions that were made to him were sound, some whimsical, others strangely balanced upon a business idea--but back of all of them ran the same motive. The past in Sergeant York's life had been filled with hard work and hardships, the present was new, the future uncharted, but to him there was something in the voices of the people who were acclaiming him that was not for sale. When he left Fort Oglethorpe for his home, the people of his mountain country, in automobiles, on horseback, upon mules, whole families riding in chairs in the beds of farm wagons, met him along the roadway as he traveled the forty-eight miles over the mountains from the railroad station to Pall Mall, and they formed a procession as they wound their way toward the valley.