Excerpt from History of Buffalo and Erie County: 1914-1919 Outside! All around! Even about the City Hall, removed from the main arteries of travel, the crowds were surging back and forth in the streets. Crowd leaders were endeavor ing to marshal their followers in the semblance of parade formation. Here and there por tions of what once might have been a band gave out voluminously, if not harmoniously, the strains of martial music. Confetti was everywhere, and from the highest windows of the office buildings on the corner girls were throwing out sparkling clouds of paper clipped to snowflake size. Happiness in confusion appeared to have achieved its greatest triumph. Enthusiasm was at its topmost pitch. The marchers, as their respective banners indicated, were drawn from the great munition plants, from the high schools, from the law offices, from the department stores and made up a cosmopolitan crowd from the avenues and institutions where men and women earn their livelihood, or prepare themselves therefor. It was among such surroundings I plodded on in the task previously undertaken of preparing in an official way for historical reference the story of Buffalo's part in the war. Contemporaneous writers whose individual capacity for the task far overshadows mine abound. But unfortunately perhaps for this work, it happened that I had been closely associated with Buffalo's war program from the first day until, at least, the present hour. Compilations of this sort are usually the result of painstaking effort. I surely will bow in grateful appreciation if this one shall be deemed worthy of that last word of commendation. The book can claim a foundation of information obtained at first hand, and to that extent it will be a substantial edifice. Though its ornamentations may not be suggestive of the broadest culture nor the highest scholarship, it will deal with men as they were and events as they transpired among the masses of our citizenship. An inspiring skyline, a knowledge that it is a story of the splendid sacrifices and brilliant achievements of a patriotic people will tend, I am sure, to hold even the balance so that just recognition may be accorded to each, whether his task was performed under the rays of heroic splendor on the battlefield or in the equally arduous but less dangerous and more dimly illuminated walks of civic war work. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.