The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-08-17
HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF IN PRESENT WORLD WAR
 SAYS DR. 6. |. PORTER

l ed in the aScendency of Red RepuDn- canisn-Jefferson. and many of his associates were indoctrinated with the French ideaIism concerning liberty
 and equality the citizens of the voung nation cherished a lively grati- ! tude for the material assistance Of money and ships, and men contribut- ed by France to the Continentals dur-- Iing the trying years of the RevoIu- ton and especially to the capture of Cornwallis and the British army at | Yorktown. The patriotic heart res tsentfully remembered the English To-. Tries.
 The people generally, as they expe4 Irienced the infelicities of legal re- strafnt and taxation began to realize that no form of government autor11at- ca1ly conferred personal prosperity, or released from individual responsibility for its support. All the disamected 1 all who were disappointed in business, lin politics, in the weather, united to
 accuse the national authorities from Washington down as being influenced Jby English sentiment, or bought with I English gold, and were naturally
 against the government
 Public affairs were seething. a, lit tie more steam would raise the lid.
 This was supp1ied by a. fiery little
 Frenchman, familiarly known to his l tory as Citizen Genest.'' In the ret l respect of a hundred years it is a most I amusing episode, but at the time was
 pregnant with the possibility of grave
 danger to the republic. I The French government sent Ed
 mond c. Genest as their minister to this country. He represented the I4directorate of the Revolution, but was Ian accomplished diplomat, trained in the courts of England, Holland, Aus tria. and Russia Believing, with other
 members of the chancellories of Eu-e l.. IT., house built upon sand; that it's poIity Twas falacious, that it's claim to na 1 tionaI prerogatives was a. farce, he came over to teach us four place in 1.-the Sun," and to show us how re- lpublica1~ government should be ad- IrninisteTed. He landed at Charles town, the principal port of entry in
 the South and almost before his feet I had pressed the soil of the new world, land before presenting his official cre+ Identials, authorized every French I consul to create himself an admiral Ety courtf filled out blank commissions lin the French service for army and navy officers and commenced to fit out privateers to harrass British com merce. These diplomatic pirates J seized many small vessels off our At llantic coast, and also captured an English meFchantman within the I lCapes of the Delaware. Placing upon
 
 LEmbascade-the victorious priya- Iteer, the red hberty-cap of France. land upon the captured ship the Eng fish colors reversed with the French flag above them, they proudly sailed Iup the river to Philadelphias. Here twelve days later Genest arrived met lat the Schuylkill by an escort, of hon I or, and welcomed to s'the City of lBrotherly Love by the plaudits of IcroWded streets, salVos of cannon, and the glad ringing of church bells. So-s lcieties, both political and civic, pre- lsented addresses and a public ban lquet, pretentions and com plinlentary was rendered. Upon April 319, 179S, he presented his credentials, as anbas- I Isador, to Washington, who,- recogniz- ling the injustiflabIe diplomatic pro Iceedings, cooIy received him. In the laugust presence of the President the. l lcho1erick alien recognized the inf1uzl Ience of a master mind and experience led a realization of his own 1ittleness land bonbast, but, esca ping, his self importance was again inflated and once more he became fttl1e schaInp pion of the plain people, whom he indig- fnantly told that he tshad been shock led by the insult to France by seeing
 a bust of King Louis XVI in the home
 of the Presid ents and astonished to
 learn that relatives of Lafayette had. tbeen there admittd. ?
 The great banquet was held upon
 the 23rd of May. A contemporan- Jl eous report tells us this of the Gal- lican bantum, ssais ears were greeted
 with the Marseillaise Hymn. and his eyes delighted with a Tree of Liber- ty on the table. His heart was made glad by having the red cap of liberty placed on his own head first, and then
 upon the head of each guest, while the iwearer, under the inspiration of its E 77f liberty" Iu this highfalutin extrava- ganda the leading citizens of the most prominent city in the land as PhiIa- Ide1phia then was, participated, headed
 by Major General Mifflin, Governor of Pennsylvania. At the banuuet board "a roasted pig was dubbed with
 the title of the murdered king, and the head. severed d<frorn the body was carried around to each of the guests who, after placing the cap of liberty
 upon his own head pronounced the
 word Tyrant.' and proceeded to man gle with his own knife that of the
 poor pig
 Genest mistook the fanaticism of the meeting for the sentiment of the Ination harrangued mass meetings with the assertion that the President was
 nnisrepresenting the sovereign people, and did not even pay him the com IpIiment that our late Secretary. gave
 President Wilson that while with lit tie comprehension of .4pub1ic affairs
 he still thought that the President was Ia good man. The Frenchman ap- lpealed from the authorities to their masters the people. Encouraged by prominent leaders of public opinion, among others the secretary of state supported by the newspapers in many
 places, Genest organized against the
 government secret political societies,
 after the manner of the French Rev. OI
 Philadelphia of the President actual
 ly fitted out in the capital of the Unit
 ed States a privateer called "The Little < Democrat
 On April 23, Washington issued a
 Proclamation of neutrality, I believe