"
In the summer of 1917 when Alvin York was called to war, he was working
on the farm for $25 a month and his midday meal, walking to and from his
work. He was helping to support his widowed mother with her family of
eleven. When he returned to this country to be mustered out of service
he had traveled among the soldiers of France the guest of the American
Expeditionary Force, so the men in the lines could see the man who
single-handed had captured a battalion of machine guns, and he bore the
emblems of the highest military honors conferred for valor by the
governments composing the Allies.
At New York he was taken from the troop-ship when it reached harbor and
the spontaneous welcome given him there and at Washington was not
surpassed by the prearranged demonstrations for the Nation's
distinguished foreign visitors.
The streets of those cities were lined with people to await his coming
and police patrols made way for him. The flaming red of his hair, his
young, sunburned, weather-ridged face with its smile and its strength,
the worn service cap and uniform, all marked him to the crowds as the
man they sought.
On the shoulders of members of the New York Stock Exchange he was
carried to the floor of the Exchange and business was suspended. When he
appeared in the gallery of the House of Representatives at Washington,
the debate was stopped and the members turned to cheer him.
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