New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-12-01
Soldiers Three
France Pays Her Tribute to the First
Americans Killed on Her Soil

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Americans will find it hard TO read without
dimming eyes the tribute paid By rrench
officer 20 the American privates, Enright,
Gresham and Hay, the first 70 fall under the
American flag in France.
II is we'll TO reread and 20 remember tie
following:
In the name of the til Division. In the
name Of the French army and in the name
Of France bid farewell 20 Private Enrigh..
Private Gresham and Private Hay, Of the
American army.
OF their own free will they had left 4
prosperous and happy country TO come over
here. They knew war was continuing In Eu-
rope; they knew that the forces fighting for
honor, love Of justice and civilization we're
still checked by the long prepared forces
serving the powers OF brutal domination, op-
preston and barbarty. They knew that Of.
forts were still necessary. They wished 10
give up their generous hearts, and they hsv
not forgotten old historical memories, while
others forget more recent ones.
They ignored nothing Of the circumstance
and nothing had been concealed from them
neither the length and hardships Of war,
nor the violence of battle, nor the dreadful
ness Of new weapons, nor the perfdy OF the
foe. Nothing stopped them. They adopted
the hard and strenuous life; they crossed
the ocean at great peril; they took their
places on the front by our side, and they
have fallen facing the foe in hard and
desperate handto-hand fight. Honor to them.
Their families, friends and fellow citizens
will be proud when they learn Of their
deaths
Men, These graves, the first 70 be dug in
our national soil and only short distance
from the enemy, are as a mark Of the mighty
land we and our allies firmly cling 10 in the
common task, confirming the will Of The peo-
pie and The army Of the United States to
fight with US TO a finish. ready 70 sacrifice as
long as is necessary until final victory for
the most noble Of causes, that Of liberty Of
nations.s the weak as we'll as the mighty
Thus the deaths of these humble soldiers sp.
peal to US with extraordinary grandeur.
We will therefore ask that the mortal re.
mains of these young men be left here, left
with US forever We inscribe on the tombs,
Here Lie the First Soldiers Of the Republic
of the United States to Fall on the Soil Of
France for Liberty and Justice" The pass.
erby will stop and uncover his head. Trsv.
ellers and men of heart will 90 out Of their
way to come here to pay their respective
tributes.
Private Enrght, Private Gresham Private
Hayl In the name Of France, ! thank you.
God receive your souls. Farewell,
Our own Theodore O'Hara, who sleeps be-
meath the messy marble in the State Gene
terry at Frankfort, where Boone looks down
from the cliffs upon the cleaning river, and
where the Kcntuckans who fought at Buens
Vista and Monterey lie clustered about the
white shaft reared to honor heroes of the
Mexican War; O'Hara, poet, soldier and pa
triot, declared in his "Bivouac Of the Dead"
that the ashes of the brave should be claimed
from war, as its richest spoil, and returned
to the warriors native land.
Ordinarily the rule laid down by o'Hars
should be obeyed, but in this instance It may
we'll be broken. The graves Of Privates En-
right, Gresham and Hay should remain for
ever in France, where the first Americans
wearing the American uniform, under the
American flag, died in Europe for Americas
conception of liberty, freedom from the die
tatcs of throne and crown, independence OF
pretended divine right freedom to traverse
peaceably and unassailed the open ROADS OF
the world, by land or sea.
Nothing is more fitting than that the
graves Of three private soldiers from Amer
lea should become a shrine of liberty IN
France. visited by Europeans and Americans
as the milestonos upon the highway OF
human progress, marking the pon, at which
the flame OF freedom which had burned
bravely, brightly and steadily since the inau.
Duration of the American Revolution fared
back across the Atlantic and illumned the
scene Of the struggle OF republican France
against her hereditary enemy and demoe-
racy's irveterate enemy, autocratlc Prussia
There are few far too few-monumens
to common soldiers. Lei there be lasting
one To- Privates Gresham, Enright and Hay
France will keep the turf about II green
The feet of lovers Of freedom will keep the
pathway 10 it we'll beaten. The soldiers
three, humble though they were in life, VIII
be in death immortal.