New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-12-27
Vive la France!

most Illuminating IN us nauOnal eASVehCe'
there must be for all Americans whose
tradition is of the Revolutionary day and
whose ideals are those Of the older and
nobler period one supreme desire for the
year that is to come.
Beyond all else these Americans, be-
cause they are Americans, must wish and
hope that the next twelve months will see
the deliverance of France, will see the
expulsion of the Boche Beast from the last
arpent of French territory and the ulti-
mate degrading evidence Of his presence
removed from the affairs and hearths Of
the French Republic.
No American will dream of wishing for
France courage; rather he will confess
with inward shame the regret that there
has been lacking to American democracy
that courage, that supreme self-abnega-
ton, that final devotion to the cause of
human liberty which has sent so many
millions Of Frenchmen 70 the trenches TO
defend civilization, liberty. righteousness,
against the foul barbarism that has come
down from the north as the other Huns
came.
No American now or ever hereafter will
wish for France strength Of will to dare
and TO endure. The France that we have
loved from of old time has taken on for
us a new and nobler meaning since the
men and women of the French Republic
went out to give life honor, happiness
all that they had, that mankind of all
races and tribes might for all future time
live in their own faiths, their own civil
cations and their own rights. Rather
Americans now and hereafter will mourn
because in the great hour when humanity
was tried by fire and the faith that is in
men put TO the final test American de-
mocracy skulked and faltered, while the
French stood firm.
For France, with the coming of the New
Year. Americans will wish only the physi-
cal strength, since the strength Of soul Is
forever beyond question, to push back
from her temples and her palaces and her
fields that German beast which has bat
tened on the lives of children and the
honor Of women, which has by fire, by
sword, by lust and by murder sought to
transform the world that was beautiful to
its own purposes by destroying all that
was beautiful in art, in life, in honor.
That which Americans could do, individ-
ually, they have done for France. Many
of our sons have died with the French on
the battlefelds Of Champagne and Artois.
American women and American men have
given of their wealth, their strength and
their effort to mitigate the suffering and
lessen the destruction of brutal war.
PiGfully little as it has been, when bal
anced by the supreme service France has
in the same time rendered to Americans
10 men of all races and conditions, yet Il
has represented the best that circum-
stance and the present estate Of American
public life permitted We do not think OF
it now, save only to regret that it is SC
little in the face Of such great deserving
Yet there is one thing uppermost in the
hearts Of many Americans, one thing that
they wish that the French could under
stand, and that is how wide and deep is
the love and admiration of Americans fol
France. II is not thing official. French
men should be the first TO understand how
inescapably the base. the selfish, the self.
seeking, creep into the public life Of ma
ton, great or small From the height OF
the better days that have come to them
they should understand and sympathize
with the pain and the bitterness that is tho
portion Of Americans in the present de
grading hour Of American history.
And it is the greatness Of France, the
splendor and the grandeur Of French de-
votion and self-sacriice, that makes the
American condition Of the moment seem
least tolerable and most humilating. In
the greatest hour since the French Revo
luton, at a time when the bravest anC
noblest battle against barbarism and VIC
lence in human history is being fought, the
mean, the ignoble, the selfish ends anC
aims of few little men have shackleC
the hands and bound the feet Of the Amer
lean democracy, and there is left only the
feeble strength Of the individual to mattel
the collective devotion Of the French ma
ton.
In our own suffering and our own hu
initiation there is nothing that Americans
ire more anxious that the French should
understand than that the American thint
hat to-day seems incomprehensible TO th'
millions Of French, who have loved Amer
lea and believed in her, is not the trut
America. Mr.. Wilson is no more thu
prophet Of the true America than wa
Caillaux the genuine expression Of France
We shall repudiate Mr. Wilson and all hi
works as completely as France repudiatet
Caillaux, and for the same reason.
Our own democracy win be q better
bier thing because Of this great "or
ia fhere has coyoc % n the ozsuplc o