Whether they were coming home from the war or preparing to leave for overseas duty, America’s protectors became the source of the country’s most immediate danger in the late summer and early fall of 1918. First it was the sailors who returned to places like Boston’s Commonwealth Pier or Philadelphia’s Naval Yard. Then it was the soldiers, like those of the 328th Labor Battalion, who traveled on overcrowded troop trains infecting each other, and civilians, along the way. Within three weeks, influenza had spread throughout the whole country.
When the second wave of Spanish Flu struck, it did so violently and with little, if any, warning. One minute a person was apparently healthy. Within an hour or two, the patient was nearly prostrate. Fevers could quickly reach as high as 105 degrees Fahrenheit. Sick people said they felt as though they’d been hit with a club.
American’s surgeon general, Rupert Blue, desperately tried to find a cure. He, like others around the world, was unsuccessful. To manage the contagion, health officials alternated the head-end and foot-end of sick beds. For most, the illness passed after several days. But between five and ten percent of those infected with the virus developed severe and massive pneumonia. And it was that complication which caused so many deaths.
Americans supported the war in Europe with money as well as men. Much of the
money was raised through war bonds or war stamps. As President Woodrow Wilson gave a speech in the U.S. Senate, supporting the right of American women to vote, Philadelphians prepared for a major rally to support the war through Liberty Bonds.
As word began to spread that the Russian Tsar, Nicholas II, and his entire family had been murdered by the Bolsheviks (the October
Revolution, ushering in the era of the Soviet Union, had occurred one year earlier), people in Philadelphia gathered for the “Liberty Loan” parade. Within days of that crowd-packed parade, the pandemic crippled the “city of brotherly love.” Before the month of October was over, Spanish Flu and its complications had killed more than 12,000 Philadelphia citizens. The influenza death toll for the entire country that month was a staggering 175,000.
The world, truly, was in chaos.