New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-04-23
America Awakening
BY Maurice Bdnes
Member Of The French academy


HuCHt III ufN OIUiNu O'N'N~/
came the heroism of France. A letter from
Ohio dated December 10. 1916, repeats wnat
we have heard hundred times already ana
that we will hear with pleasure once more
you have no idea how France has grown IN
the eyes of Americans. OF course, those VINO
knew her expected no less, but Germany hau
spoken of French decadence for so many
years that the world had come to believe
that the first shock Of the formidable German
machine would mean the end of her heredl-
tary enemy. Now there is but one epithet IN
the months of all be they pro-German or
pro-Ally: Heroic France!'"
After having admired our soldiers so great
". many over there felt DESTROYS Of sharing
in their glory. "You do not need our help
writes one. "but believe that It would have
been an honor for US to have fought at your
side" OF four hundred Harvard men, stu
dents and professors who donned uniform IN
Europe. only four joined the camp OF the
Central Empires. One must take into &C
count the difficulty there was IN crossing
from America to Germany, but the difference
remains enormous. In some volunteers there
NAV have been far-away loyalty, working IN
favor of England or France, as was the case
with Andre Champollion, great-grandson OF
the Egyptologist, who was killed at Bois-le-
Pretre in March, 1915. In the majority II
was a mixture Of adventurous sport OF en-
t;rely sincere cordiality toward our cause
and of devotion to higher ideal.
The most admirable of these boys was per-
hans the charming Victor Chapman, architect,
Of the Ecole des Beaux- Arts, who enlisted IN
the Foreign Legion, then became an AVIATOR
and was killed in aerial combat near Verdun
on June "a, 1916. lie was carrying by way
of the air basket of oranges to comrade
being cared for in one of the hospitals OF the
district. when he saw three fiers OF MS
SQUADRON in combat with four German ma
chimes. He went to their assistance and was
killed. and his father wished him to be buried
in the soil which he had helped to defend
The West at First Aloof
Wonderful impulses which illustrate and
consecrate the words Of friendship which the
intellectuals dedicated to u.s. But these out
bursts remained isolated, proving nothing be-
vond the individual. While the American
East was represented at our front by the
most illustrious names of New England, the
West considered the war absurd, and even
scandalous. II seemed 10 many people an
internal struggle among Europeans claiming
one and the same civilization. -,
That an integral national feeling should
have been developed in the United States,
that a difference should have been hnal-
" made between the normal standards OF the
two sides-that is what must astound us, and
that is not easy to formulate, showing, as II
does. an admirable grip of the intellectual
minority on the great anonymous masses
That America should have been shaken in
its deep spiritual elements, that 1t should
have passed from the material to the national
point Of view, that it should have risen to the
conception of collective honor-that TINS
workshop should become a nation-that Is
the mysterious point. Among Americans
some took up business; others, morality; out
neither the ideal nor the material tended tow
ard a reaction of the sense Of honor. But
country cannot live forever on Individual
morality or on the care for welloeing' we
witness the passing, or rather the return, OF
one hundred million people to a collective
conscience. The dead has seized the living.
In the wrestle Of the two powers, on one side
the present and the love Of peace and on the
other the past and the grip of hereditary
forces, the latter has obtained the upper hand.
A United People
II was thus with President Wilson, whose
personality so nobly represents this Crisis.
This secretive man, who, it seems, does not
easily listen to advice and is hard TO infu-
ence seems to have followed a sentiment Of
puritanical impulse. 1t irritated him to see
that the German language is double-barrelled
and that notes of six months distance boldly
contradict each other This scrupulous, some
saw. mon conforming Scotchman," had his
awakening, the illumination of his conscience
and his conversions, in the sense understood
by the compatriots Of William James; he SUI
fered TO the point of disgust from the moral
imperfection of the Germans.
A similar phenomenon is taking place in
the whole country. The centre Of heat, OF IN
stinct. of notion has changed in each indi-
vidual. A new source of power has appeared
in the centre of the nation What source
The sense of honor. Doubtless the war
awakens strong resistances. Doubtless among
the German Americans there are some dis
cordant notes, yet the greater number OF
those of German origin, while regretting that
a choice so painful should be imposed upon
them, declare that they place the United
States above all, above Germany herself,
and that they are first of all Americans.
"Fatherland" changes its name, and is
called in future "The New World" The
newspapers remark that the troubles feared
have been rare, congratulate themselves on
the practically unanimous approval which the
country accords TO the President, and believe
they are witnessing new birth of patriotism.
1t is at least the crystallzng of feeling
which had lacked form.