Norwich bulletin. [volume] (Norwich, Conn.) 1895-2011, 1919-02-25
PRESIDENT WILSON TO FIGHT
FOR LEAGUE OF NATIONS
(Contnjued from Pace Onel

to one another for Il dispassionate
view of the matters in controversy.
They resort to that nation which has
won the enviable distinction of being
regarded as the friend of mankind.
Whenever it is desired to send
small force of soldiers to occupy a
piece of territory where it is thought
nobody else will be welcome, they ask
for American soldiers. And where
other soldiers would be looked upon
with suspicion and perhaps met with
resistance, the American soldier is
welcomed with acclaim.
4 have had so many grounds for
pride on the other side OF the water
that | am very thankful that they are
not grounds for personal pride, but for
national pride. If they were grounds
for personal pride, I'd be the most
stuck-up man in the world. And it
see those gallant soldiers of ours, of
whom the constitution of the United
States made me the proud commander.
You may be proud of the Twenty
sixth division, but | commanded the
| Twenty sixth division, and see what
| they did under my direction! And
everybody praises the American SOL
! der with the feeling that in praisinG
| him he is SubLractlng from the credit
| of no one else.
81 have been searching for the fun
damental fact that converted Europe
| to believe in US. Before this war Eu-
rope did not believe in US as she does
now. She did not believe in us
throughout the first three years of the
war. She seems really to have be-
lieved that we were holding off be-
cause we thought we could make more
by staying out than by going in. And
all of d sudden, in short eighteen
months, the whole verdict is reversed.
! There can be but one explanation for
it. They saw what we did-that with
out making a single claim we put all
our men and all our means at the dis
posal of those who were fighting for
their homes, in the first instance, but
for cause, the cause of human rights
and justice, and that we went in, not
to support their national claims, but
to support the great cause which they
held in common.
and when they saw that America
not only held ideals but acted ideals
they were converted to America and
became firm partisans of those ideals
Il met group of scholars when ]
was in Paris-some gentlemen from
one of the Greek universities who had
come to see me, and in whose pres
ence, or rather in the presence OF
whose traditions of learning, | felt
very young indeed. I told them that
l had one OF the delightful revenges
that sometimes comes to Il man. AL
my life l had heard men speak with
a sort of Condescension of ideals anc
of idealists, and particularly those
separated, encloistered persons whom
they choose to term academic, who
were i'll the habit of uttering ideals il
the free atmosphere when they CLASH
with nobody in particular.
And I said 1 have had this swee
. revenge. Speaking with perfect frank.
! ness in the name of the people of thu
United States, I have uttered as thu
: objects of this great war ideals, an(
: nothing but ideals, and the war hai
been won by that inspiration Mel
were fighting with tense muscle ant
, lowered head until they came to real
. ize those things, feeling they wer
fighting for their lives and their coun
try, and when these accents of wha
it was all about reached them from
America they, lifted their heads, the,
, raised their eyes to heaven, when the.
= saw men in khaki coming across tn
:, sea in the spirit of crusaders; and the
found that these were strange mer
reckless of danger not only, but recll
less because tney seemed 10 see some
thing that made that danger wort
O while. Men have testified to me i
y Europe that our men were poSsesse
= by something that they could only ca
a religious fervor. They were not lik
, any OF the other soldiers. They ha
:; a vision, they had a dream, and the
= were fighting in the dream, and fight
- ing in the dream they turned til
- whole tide of battle, and it never cam
back.
One of our American humorist
= soldiers were not trained long enougl
= said: 1t takes only half as long t
II train an American soldier as any othf
= because you only have to train hi
20 one way; and he did only so one wa
~ and he never came back until he Cou
do it when he pleased
And now do YOU realize that til
confidence we have estabiishe
n throughout the world imposes q bul
N den upon us-if you choose to call
p a burden. 1t is one Of those burde,
which any nation ought TO be prot
TO carry. Any man who resists Il
present tides that run in the wor
IF will seem as If he had heen separate
l. from bis human kind forever.
to THE Europe that 1 left the 9th
Y, day was full Of something that it hi
never felt till its heart so full befor
" II was iUlI Of hope. The Europe
er the second year of the war, the F.
~ rope of the third year of the war, ";
sinking TO a sort of stubborn dtsper