Bremenfieber

With the news that the whale-nosed Bremen had lowered the Atlantispeed record by nearly nine hours, the City of Bremen went wild last week. Germany's President, rheumy Paul von Hindenburg. sent congratulatory telegrams. City fathers, clubs and corporations lunched and dined, rapturously drank each other's health. In New York, correspondents of German newspapers rushed pages and pages to the cable offices, announcing that the entire city had Ein furchtbares Bremenfieber, a furious Bremen-fever. With precision they noted these points:

So feverish were New York crowds to see the Bremen during the four days she was in port that even the 70,000 passes which the North German Lloyd issued were not enough. Thousands of pink pier passes were forged, sold to Brooklyn crowds for $1 each.

Personages with influence caught Bremen-fever, caught the Bremen too. Personages: U. S. Senator Royal Samuel Copeland; Peter Finley "Mr. Dooley" Dunne; Mr. & Mrs. Gustave A. Heckscher; Soprano Frieda Hempel; Editor George Horace Lorimer of the Saturday Evening Post ("merely for fun").

With the Bremen sliding eastward intent on breaking her own record, rival steamship lines talked speed, planned competition. The White Star Line announced revised plans for the 60,000 ton Oceanic, whose keel, half laid, lies rusting in a Belfast yard. The U. S. Lines, freed somewhat of the shackles of Prohibition, planned two super-Leviathans to steam 32 knots (38 m.p.h.). Similar detailed announcements came from the Cunard and Italian lines.

Scotch Andrew Cockburn, chief engineer of the Mauretania that held the Atlantirecord for 22 years had one consolation:

"We've got that still--the fastest lifeboat crew in the world. . . . They won the international race in New York harbor last year, and they'll win it again."