Hark! That roar of voices in the Public Gardens! What is it? A band playing in the distance? Who ordered a band to play? German officers shout harsh commands. “Back!” “Stand back!” “Stop this pushing of the crowd!” “_Mein Gott!_ Those women and children will be trampled by the horses!” Alas, that is true! Once more the cause of American liberty requires that Boston Common be hallowed by American blood. The people of this New England city are tired of German rule. They want their city for themselves and are going to take it. Guns or not, soldiers or not, they are going to take their city. Listen! They are coming! Six hundred thousand strong in dense masses that choke every thoroughfare from wall to wall the citizens of Boston, women and children with the men, are coming! And singing! “Hurrah! Hurrah! We sound the jubilee! Hurrah! Hurrah! The flag that set us free.” They are practically unarmed, although some of the men carry shot-guns, pistols, rifles, clubs, stones; but they know these will avail little against murderous machine guns. They know they must find strength in their weakness and overwhelm the enemy by the sheer weight of their bodies. They must stun the invaders by their willingness to die. That is the only real power of this Boston host, their sublime willingness to die. It is estimated that five thousand of them did die, and ten thousand were wounded, in the first half hour after the German machine guns opened fire. And still the Americans came on in a shouting, surging multitude, a solid sea of bodies with endless rivers of bodies pouring in behind them. It is not so easy to kill forty acres of human bodies, even with machine guns! Endlessly the Americans came on, hundreds falling, thousands replacing them, until presently the Germans ceased firing, either in horror at this incredible sacrifice of life or because their ammunition was exhausted. What chance was there for German ammunition carts to force their way through that struggling human wall? What chance for the fifteen hundred German reserves in Franklin Park to bring relief to their comrades? At eight o’clock that night Boston began her real Christmas eve celebration. Over the land, over the world the joyful tidings were flashed. Boston had heard the call of the martyred President and answered it. The capital of Massachusetts was free. The Stars and Stripes were once more waving over the Bunker Hill Monument. Four thousand German soldiers were prisoners in Mechanics Hall on Commonwealth Avenue. _The citizens of Boston had taken them prisoners with their bare hands!_ This news made an enormous sensation not only in America but throughout Europe, where Boston’s heroism and scorn of death aroused unmeasured admiration and led military experts in France and England to make new prophecies regarding the outcome of the German-American war.