A council of war was held immediately and, acting on the advice of aeroplane experts, General Wood ordered the withdrawal of our land and air forces. It would be madness to attempt further resistance. Our army was hopelessly outnumbered, our chlorine supply was gone, our air fleet, after flying all day, was running short of gasoline and its weary pilots were in no condition to withstand the attack of a fresh German fleet. At all costs we must save our aeroplanes, for without them the little remnant of our army would be blind. This was the beginning of the end. We had done our best and failed. At six o’clock orders were given that the whole American army prepare for a night retreat into the remote fastnesses of the Blue Ridge Mountains. We had made our last stand east of the Alleghenies and fell back heavy-hearted, leaving the invaders in full possession of our Atlantic seaboard. CHAPTER XXI THE AWAKENING OF AMERICA There followed dark days for America. Washington was taken by the enemy, but not until our important prisoners, the Crown Prince and von Hindenburg, had been hurried to Chicago. Baltimore was taken. Everything from Maine to Florida and all the Gulf ports were taken. Add to this a widespread spirit of disorder and disunion, strikes and rioting in many cities, dynamite outrages, violent addresses of demagogues and labour leaders, pleas for peace at any price by misguided fanatics who were ready to reap the whirlwind they had sown. These were days when men of brain and courage, patriots of the nation with the spirit of ‘76 in them, almost despaired of the future. Through all this storm and darkness, amid dissension and violence, one man stood firm for the right, one wise big-souled man, the President of the United States. In a clamour of tongues he heard the still small voice within and laboured prodigiously to build up unity and save the nation. Like Lincoln, he was loved and honoured even by his enemies. It was my privilege to hear the great speech which the President of the United States delivered in Chicago, November 29, 1921, a date which Theodore Roosevelt has called the most memorable in American history. The immense auditorium on the lake front, where once were the Michigan Central tracks, was packed to suffocation. It is estimated that 40,000 men and women, representing every state and organisation in the Union, heard this impassioned appeal for the nation, that will live in American history along with Lincoln’s Gettysburg address. The President spoke first and did not remain to hear the other orators, as he was leaving for Milwaukee, where he hoped to relieve a dangerous, almost a revolutionary situation. He had been urged not to set foot in this breeding place of sedition, but he replied that the citizens of Milwaukee were his fellow countrymen, his brothers. They were dear to him. They needed him. And he would not fail them.