New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-04-27
For France
Blu Theodore Stanton
from The Independent

that there were many hundreds OF them III
the Franco British and in the Belgian-brit-
ish armies.
There is still more 20 my catalogue OF what
this flower Of our American youth, VINO saw
what was coming and gallantly acted while
the rest of the nation slept-some are sun
slumbering- done on the Western front.
Furthermore, we have there and have had
there for some two years two well-equipped,
thoroughly experienced ambulance corps, al
most wholly composed Of fine spirited college
boys and college alumni Of the more recent
classes.
But the presence Of ambulsnces presup-
poses hospitals. We have them, too, and
they are also of the first class. Between
Paris and the firing line we have several Of
the best installed military hospitals which
have been seen in this or any other war, hos
pitfalls managed by American business men and
executive American women, with able Ameri-
can surgeons, physicians and trained nurses
presiding over the wards.
| believe that the quickest way to accom-
plish the purpose which every American has
at heart, If he is worth being an American,
is to send forthwith to France Theodore
Roosevelt, or some regular army general,
along with a little body OF officers. Ny sug-
geston, if carried out as regards Roosevelt
would not conflict with his raising a division
here. That could be done by his subordi-
mates. His recruits would assemble all the
more rapidly and drill with all the more
earnestness if they knew that their popular
chief was on the firing line awaiting their
coming
French Enthusiasm for Roosevelt
This question of sending Roosevelt to
Europe is being judged here exclusively from
the American standpoint, instead of from
the European standpoint, or rather from the
French standpoint Anybody in touch with
French public opinion knows that no Ameri-
can would create in France the enthusiasm
that Roosevelt would, and his speaking
French with remarkable ease, if not with per-
feet correctness, is very important consid-
Grafton under the circumstances, which would
not tend to decrease this enthusiasm. And
enthusiasm is as much needed in France at
the present moment as soldiers, food or
money Though the French heart remains as
Lrave as ever, there is a sadness spread over
the country which all family letters reveal.
And how could il be otherwise where there are
already deaths in every family, and more to
come; where fathers, husbands and brothers
are langushng in foreign prison camps;
where in the Invaded regions" whole fami-
lies are broken up, perhaps never to come
together again; where homes and farms are
being ruthessly destroyed by relentless re-
firing invaders? These sorely stricken peo-
pie want sympathy and cheer, and the pres
ence there of Americans in American uni
forms, and an ex-President of the United
States leading them-the French are very
protocolare even in their misery-such a
tangible visible participation in the veal and
woe OF France will in itself be victory for
the Allies.
Nor would such an organized American
body at the front be beneficial to France and
the Allies alone. | conceive of nothing that
would so spur on to action the loquacious
and chicken hearted Congressman, nothing
that would so speed up enlistments, nothing
that would so loosen the purse strings for
the coming gigantic loan, nothing, in word,
that would SO help on the substitution in this
nation of virility for emasculation as the re-
ports our newspaper correspondents at the
front would cable TO our metropolitan jour
mails about the every act of the valiant regi-
ments of Americans taking their share IN
the dangers of the firing line along with all
the soldiers Of liberal Europe.