New-York tribune., 1919-03-24
The Balance of $4,000 Will
Arrive To-day, Prepared
for Extensive Schedule
of Dinners and Shows
Preliminaries Uncertain
All Sections Plan Their
Own Receptions; Parade
Preparations Move On

BY the process of infiltration, sys-
tenn used successfully where the Ger
man machine guns were wickedest, the
9th Division began yesterday the con-
quest of New York. Approximately
5000 young veterans of the final
clashes with the gray defenders of the
Hindenburg line rolled in on troop
trains from Camps Merritt and Mills,
and spent their first peace time night
in nearly two years in the city from
which they went forth to war
To-day the remaining units, COM
prisng about 10000 men, will begin
arriving shortly after daylight, and be-
fore noon the city will be completely
in their hands. Then will start the
welcome New York has waited to ex-
tend since the armistice was signed.
Everything it has in the way Of en-
tertainment will be theirs, and the en-
tertaining will end only with the
climacteric pageant of heroes on Fifth
Avenue tomorrow
After that, the $4,000 young soldiers
of the old National Guard, longing to
exchange the khaki for multi, will dine
at seventy-fve hotels ana clubs. Then
they will shoulder packs, perhaps for
the last time, and go to Camp Upton,
where, it was said yesterday, the eager
ly awaited discharges probably will be-
gin coming through the army mill
Thursday.
The New York men who arrived in
the city yesterday were permitted to
spend the night at their homes and
Will have two more nights between
sheets before they go back to camp
Wednesday morning %to be mustered
out. The mon arriving to-day will have
tonight and Tuesday night at home
There will be four preliminary pa
rades to-day, and, if anything, taking
the soldier point of view, too much en-
tertaining. Officers and men who were
in the city yesterday said they had
been left too little time for themselves.
Tickets were distributed yesterday
among the various units of the division
for twenty matinees and other after
noon events and two boxing carnivals
at night
1t was announced at the same time
by officials of the Mayors Committee
of Welcome that attendance would be
compulsory; that is, the men who get
the tlckets-and thousands we're rent
yesterday to the armores and camps
will "fall in" and march to the theatres
under command OF junior officers
Must Attend Boxing Bouts
The same rule will be in force, it was
stated, with reference to the two box
ing shows at the Coast Artillery Arm
of hrI k,J IL
Garden, which was relinquishod for the
event through the courtesy Of the Ring
ling -Barnum & Bailey Circus.
The boxing will be almost exclusively
for the enlisted men, for the officers Of
the division, numbering about 900, after
the banquet to be given at the Waldorf
Astoria by the mayors committee, will
60 to the Century in body to witness
the opening Of the divisions own show,
Lets Beat It,"
Throngs of citizens, with here and
servable in the crowds, got a prelimi-
nary view yesterday Of the elaborate
decorations on the line of the parade
Tomorrow Last night clusters of
food lights illuminated the Victory
Arch at Fifth Avenue and Twenty fifth
Street, which will be finished to -day.
and the huge illumination at Sixtieth
Street gowed a preliminary welcome
until midnight.
Great crews of decorators were busy
throughout yesterday all along Fifth.
Avenue, particularly at the Arch and
at the Public Library Paul Bartlett,
president of the Society of American
Sculptors, and Thomas Hastings, de-
sgner Of the great Victory Arch, who
have charge Of the official decorations.
were at work all day, white from head
to foot with the flying dust of plaster.
Arch Is Nearly Completed
The Victory group surmounting the
arch was completed and the scaffolding
removed from the towering structure of
the arch itself on the north side. The
scaffoldng on the south side will be re-
moved to-day.
The glistening white columns, Joined
by floral chains, which line the south
ern approach to the arch, also were
completed. The captive balloons, fes-
TONED with pennants and bunting,
were inflated and tested at their
anchorage in Madison Square adjoining
this colonnade and the Altar Of Vic,
tory, which have forced the sombre