August 13, 1919, was the first full day of Herbert Hoover’s visit to Warsaw. Hugh S. Gibson, the first American Minister to Poland (1919-1924) recalled the day in his letters to his mother:
“[After an official call on Piłsudski at the Belvedere,] we were asked to go on the terrace where the photographic barrage was laid down. We were seated and the rest of the gravel before us, and twenty or thirty pictures were taken amidst the chaffing of the long haired photographer.”
The crowd had tried to be somewhat dignified but could not keep it up long and presently they caught Colonel Haller, chief of staff, and got him on their shoulders and then began to toss him until he began to laughand then they let him go. Then they got a general or two and gave them the same undignified treatment. And then they got up their courage to catch the sterm old chief of state [Piłsudski] and get him up on their shoulders. He tried to look severe but ut did not work and they began to toss him into the air until his moustache turned up in a smile, and then they let him go. It was a good deal like a devoted crowd in a small American college that got up their nerve to horse prexy [sic] a little. They all worship the old manor they would not have wanted to ruffle him up…”
Herbert Hoover, Ignacy Paderewski, Józef Piłsudski and Hugh Gibson, et al. in front of Belvedere Palace in Warsaw, August 13, 1919 (Polish National Digital Archive)
