Was wholly wasted, but
the wonderful words of Lincoln's Gettysburg Speech still ring in
our ears like heavenly music and as we turned to leave this
"hallowed" - this "consecrated" - spot, the lines repeated here by
Ella Wheeler Wilcox came to us like some grand triumphal strain
of music:
"We know that you died for Freedom,
To save our land from shame,
To rescue a periled Nation,
And we give you deathless fame.
'Twas the cause of Truth and Justice
That you fought and perished for,
And we say it, oh, so gently,
'Our boys who died in the war.'
Saviors of our Republic,
Heroes who wore the blue,
We owe the peace that surrounds us,
And our Nation's strength to you.
We owe it to you that our banner,
The fairest flag in the world,
Is today unstained, unsullied,
On the summer air unfurled.
We look on the stripes and spangles
And our hearts are filled the while
With love for the brave commanders
And the boys of the rank and file.
The grandest deeds of valor
Were never written out,
The noblest acts of virtue
The world knows nothing about.
And many a private soldier
Who walks his humble way,
With no sounding name or title,
Unknown to the world today,
In the eyes of God is a hero
As worthy of the bays,
As any mighty general
To whom the world gives praise.
For next to our God is our Nation,
And we cherish the honored name,
Of the bravest of all brave armies
Who fought for the Nation's fame."
CHAPTER V
ATLANTIC CITY
O ye, who dwell in youth's inviting bowers,
Waste not, in useless joy, your fleeting hours,
But rather let the tears of sorrow roll,
And sad reflection fill the conscious soul.
For many a jocund spring has passed away,
And many a flower has blossomed to decay;
And human life, still hastening to a close,
Finds in the worthless dust its last repose.
Still the vain world abounds in strife and hate,
And sire and son provoke each other's fate;
And kindred blood by kindred hands is shed,
And vengeance sleeps not - dies not, with the dead.
All nature fades - the garden's treasures fall,
Young bud, and citron ripe - all perish - all.
- From the Persian.
"The excessive heat of the summer of 1921 made it the first
impulse of travelers to plunge straight into the cool, kindly
ocean, where they could wade and bathe in the surf, sprawl for
hours in the sand, or indulge in races and various games along
the beach."
One is greatly impressed with the vast numbers of resorts on the
Atlantic coast. All along the Jersey shore from Bar Harbor to
Cape May you will find it almost as thickly settled as a town.
Here along this coast an amazing degree of congestion exists.
You will marvel to see all along the beach from Sandy Hook,
fifty miles of crowded street, of hotels, and houses, and behind
these still others. How this vast seaside population thrills
one, bringing visions of the "vastness and wealth of teeming
millions" of this great nation of ours. One author says, and
with truth, that Atlantic City could accommodate all of France
and still have room for more while Asbury Park would furnish
ample room as a seaside resort for Belgium and Holland.
Atlantic City, known throughout the world as a great all-the-
year resort, is situated upon Absecon Island off the Jersey
coast. Absecon is an Indian name given to this island, meaning
"Place of Swans." Great flocks of these graceful birds are said
to have frequented this spot, where they fed on clams and
oysters. The swans have long since gone, their place being taken
by less graceful and more richly attired birds, that at stated
times flock there in vast numbers. Its close proximity to the
large eastern centers of population give it an unrivaled
location. The climate is made equable by the Gulf Stream. It is
much warmer here in winter than at New York or Philadelphia and
weather records show sixty-two per cent sunshine. Motorists
visit the seashore metropolis by tens of thousands in all
seasons of the year.
Atlantic City has one thousand two hundred hotels and boarding
houses to meet every purse and entertains twenty million people
annually, the transient population reaching four hundred
thousand in August and never being less than fifty thousand.
For six miles along one of the finest bathing beaches on the
Atlantic seaboard extends the world-famed board walk, sixty feet
wide, topped with planking and built upon a steel and concrete
foundation, where promenade health and recreation seekers from
all parts of America and foreign climes. There are four great
piers varying in length from one thousand to three thousand
feet, with auditoriums and all kinds of amusements which are as
varied as the visitors are versatile. The shops of the board
walk are one of its most attractive features.
One's motto at Atlantic City as well as the world over should be
that of a certain medicine man who gave this advice to his
customers: "Let your eyes be your judge, your pocketbook your
guide, and your money the last thing you part with." But, alas!
how few heeded the free advice he gave them, but persisted in
buying his patent nostrums until their pocketbooks could
scarcely raise an audible jingle!
Money may befriend one at Atlantic City but it will never admit
him into real society where the passwords are wit, wisdom and
beauty of character; which, united, forma truly royal life.
There are people who care not whether their clothes come from
Paris or Mexico just so they are comfortable, serviceable and
becoming.
