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He had completed his 3,600-mile conquest of the Atlantic in 33 hours, 29 minutes, at an average speed of 107½ miles per hour. His first words were, "Well, here we are. I am very happy."
Some of the crowd of 25,000 attempted to strip souvenirs from the Spirit of St. Louis, while the majority escorted Captain Lindbergh, on somebody's shoulders, to a nearby clubhouse. Then, there were congratulations from U. S. Ambassador Myron Timothy Herrick and French officials, a massage and some coffee (he had refused to take coffee on the flight), a motor trip through dense traffic to Paris and ten hours' sleep in the U. S. Embassy.
He is 25, more than six feet tall, rangy, handsome, blond. He knows flying as the barnstormer with a $250 plane and as the chief pilot for the St. Louis-Chicago air mail route. He is a prominent member of the Caterpillar Club, having four times become a butterfly and descended to earth in a parachute.
Not only did Captain Lindbergh win the $25,000 prize offered by Raymond Orteig, Manhattan hotelman, for the first New York-Paris non-stop flight, but he established for himself the immemorial right of extracting dollars from the hero-gaping U. S. public by appearing on the vaudeville stage, in the cinema, etc.
HEROES
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As one title on a cinema screen slowly fades out and another title slowly takes its place, so with the beginning of this week the name Lindbergh was gradually vanishing from the black, multi-column newspaper headlines. With the Lindbergh episode almost over, cynics may rise to call his ovations "hysteria," his receptions "sensationalism run riot." But back of the torn paper and the screeching headlines lay a very sincere and very spontaneous outburst of popular emotion.
There has been so much commercialism in everything of late—crimes of passion are accompanied by insurance policies and lithe-limbed athletes hold grandstand conferences. Here was one man who did something for motives other than there being "money in it," for it is hardly sentimentalism to feel that Colonel Lindbergh did not cross the Atlantic with his mind focused on Mr. Orteig's $25,000. It was one instance in which the Dollar was not quite Almighty, of the Golden Age v. the Age of Gold.