The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-09-28
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

1 What we owe to France. This is a live question just at present when some of our boys are already over there in the trenches or getting ready to go.
 
 The debt we owe to France and her sons Is great. I do not mean for the Ideas which we have borrowed from her i great thinkers and put into our Declara- tion of Independence and into our Con- | stitution, but for the actual help she gave us in our fight with the mother country when we were battling for our 1 freedom.
 No man who knows the story of the way in which France succored us at a critical time in our history, but will have his heart to burn at the thought that at last we have a chance to repay the debt | and are going to do 1t not merely with money but with blood. Trevelyan says in his History of the American Revolution: Almost every one who was somebody in Paris or Yer | sailles. had American sympathies; and nobody was at pains to conceal It." think that this is the state of affairs now at Washington and throughout the coun- try so far as the feeling of America is for France.
 We know very different opinion ruled in Austria Joseph II regarded mon- arch who encouraged disaffection in the British colonies as a traitor to his own caste. We are told that when an at tempt was made to enlist his sympa- thies and good will on behalf of the American insurgents he coldly replied aristocrat."
 It therefore seems strange to read that Marie Antoinette. his unfortunate sis ter, obeyed the impulse which pervaded the society around her. and threw herself Into the American movement for libera- ton with frank and vivid enthusiasm. It goes 8 long ways toward making me for getfCl of much that was bad in her life and sympathetic toward her in her tragic death.
 It Is said that long afterward, when the unfortunate Queen of the French had fallen upon very evil days, one of her de- termined political antagonists expressed himself as bound by justice and grati- tude that 1t was the Queen of France who gave the cause of America fashion at the French court
 
 I give this bit out of her life to show that Americas debt to France Is an old and a long one and that France has been our friend under king and republic. We owe a debt of gratitude to France, not only for what Frenchmen did in the early settlement of America, but for what she did in aiding us to achieve independence and notably for being the contributing factor In the victory of Yorktown. I am among those who believe that France never helped us out of hatred to England, but even If she did both coun- tries today owe France debt of grati- tude for holding at bay the armies of the Kaiser and his allies until England and America could get ready. Nay, further,
 
 debtor to France?
 
 I can hardly go so far, however, as does an enthusiastic believer in Frances love for the British, which has been set in motion by their recent alliance and born of their mutual suffering that 1t was out of their very love for England and her ideals of liberty and freedom that the young gentry of France crossed thou sand leagues of sea to aid struggling America to win her freedom. am ready to believe that there were moments when the leaders of the French nation hesitated at the cost and the risk of coming to Americas aid, but that there never was moment when the French people wavered In their devotion to the American cause It is heartening to read and it makes us want to do our bit for France when we read of the old heroic days, so universal was the desire of the French soldiers to come to America that orders had to be sent to the sur geons to be very careful in examining the men, because many were concealing infirmities for fear of being left behind and France wished only picked men sent
 And now this Is the wish of America Now that the opportunity has come to her to go to the rescue of France against German invasion she wants to and is sending her best, the very pick and flower of her manhood, as we we'll have. a right to know, judging from our boys who are already on French soil and others who are now in camp or who left on Sunday to learn the art of soldering.
 
 It is right that our hearts should go out to La Belle France, who has always been winsome and gracious to Miss Lib crty? In the years gone by she was our ally and our friend, and now that the hour has arrived when she needs our friendship I thank God that Uncle Sam is chivalrous enough to rush to her side and defend her against the brutality of the Kaiser's minions who have ravaged her lands, imprisoned her sons, and be- trayed her daughters.
 The presence of Black Jack Pershing assures France that her sister republic is not insensible to her danger and pro- poses to show Kaiserism that 1t cannot trample under foot liberty and freedom without first caging the American eagle that never has yet been caught, or licking the Stars and Stripes that have never yet been lowered.