There was some gang at the Union station last night.
It wasn't a gang of bandits, nor rowdies, nor anything of that sort. It was Our Gang - Hal Roach's famous gang of diminutive rascals in person - straight from Hollywood.
They were greeted by another gang and it was some gang, too. It looked like every member of Kansas City's kidland was there to meet the most famous kids in movieland. And all the mothers and fathers and big brothers and sisters came with them.
There must have been a million kids. Nobody took the trouble to count them. It was enough to hear 'em. Did they roar a welcome to Fatty and Freckles and Jean Darling and Mary Ann and the others? Well, did they?
10,000 Great Kids.
The Our Gang rascals, including Petey the dog, were greeted by a fair sized mob even as they alighted from the train. The main mob of more than 10,000 persons awaited them upstairs, but somehow several hundred youngsters had managed to slip through the guards and rushed to greet the popular child actors, as the California Limited pulled in.
Fatty, looking shorter than his pictures make him out to be but certainly far from thin, was the first to alight, smiling broadly at the hearty reception that greeted him.
"Oh, ain't he cute! He sure is a darb!" were the first words that burst from the lips of the impromptu and decidedly informal reception committee.
"But, look, there's Farina!" was the next shout. "Farina's the cutest yet. But Jean Darling sure is sweet." And so on, Freckles, Wheezer, Mary Ann and Petey, the dog, each getting a characteristic greeting as they made their appearance.
A Cheer Goes Up.
Then upstairs where the real reception committee, thousands strong, was waiting. The lobby was one pushing, elbowing, breathless maze of people. No, not breathless, for at the first sight of the Our Gang members in the doorway a cheer went up that showed the waiting crowd was anything but breathless.
It was a hard pull through the crowd to the truck outside where a platform had been prepared for the Our Gang members, so everyone could see them. A squad of patrolmen slowly forced the crowd back, the tiny Hollywood visitors were lifted on the shoulders of parents and friends who accompanied them, and finally placed safely on the platform.
They met the gaze of a mighty and adoring throng. Around the platform "their public" was packed to the suffocation point. It extended in solid formation across the street to the car tracks and far up and down the station platform. It cheered and applauded and laughed and admired.
Our Gang Pleased.
Our Gang was pleased and showed it. One by one they were lifted high so no one in the crowd might go home disappointed at not having seen the gifted youngsters whose antics on the screen have made them known from coast to coast.
Then the time came for going back to the train. They waved goodbye and were escorted back through the crowd which surged around them, everyone trying to shake hands with Fatty and Farina and the other favorites, or trying to get a real closeup view.
It was only a fifteen-minute reception but it was a rousing one.
All the entrants in The Journal-Post Our Gang contest who passed the semifinal tests were escorted from Loew's Midland theater to the station in buses furnished by the Ni-Sun lines and the Red Wing Bus company, and given a choice place to see the whole show.