Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1919-02-25

ideals, and nothing but ideals, and
the war has been won by that in
spiration. Men were fighting with
tense muscle and lowered head until
they came to realize those things,
feeling they were fighting for their
lives and their country, and when
these accents of what it was all
about reached them from America
they lifted their heads, they raised
their eyes to heaven, when they saw
men in khaki coming across the sea
in the spirit of crusaders, and they
found that these were strange men,
reckless of danger not only, but
reckless because they seemed to see
something that made that danger
worth while. Men have testified to
me in Europe that our men were
possessed by something that they
could only call a religious ferver.
They were not like any of the other
soldiers. They had a vision, they
had dream, and they were fighting
in the dream, and fighting in the
dream they turned the whole tide of
battle and 1t never came back.
"One OF our American humorists,
meeting the criticism that American
soldiers were not trained long
enough, said: at takes only half as
long to train an American soldier
as any other, because you only have
to train him one way, and he did
only go one way, and he never came
back until he could do it when he
pleased"
And now do you realize that this
confidence we have established
throughout the world imposes a
burden upon us-if you choose to
call it burden. It is one of those
burdens which any nation ought to
be proud to carry. Any man who
resists the present tides that run in
the world will find himself thrown
upon a shore so high and barren that
it will seem as if he had been sep
arated from his human kind for
ever.
Full Of Hope.
"The Europe that / left the other
day was full of something that it
had never felt fill its heart so full be-
fore. 1t was full of hope. The Eu-
rope of the second year of the war,
the Europe of the third year of the
war was sinking to a sort of stub
born desperation. They did not see
any great thing to be achieved even
when the war should be won. They
hoped there would be some salvage;
they hoped that they could clear
their territories of invading armies;
they hoped they could set up their
homes and start their industries
afresh. But they thought it would
simply be the resumption of the old
life that Europe had led-led in fear,
led in anxiety, led in constant sus-
picious watchfulness. They never
dreamed that it would be a Europe
of settled peace and of justified
hope.
land now these ideals have
wrought this new magic, that all of
the peoples of Europe are buoyed
UP and confident in the spirit OF
hope, because they believe that we
are at the eve of new age in the
world when nations will understand
one another, when nations will sup
port one another in every just cause,
when nations will unite every moral
and every physical strength to see
that the right shall prevail.
"If America were at this junction
to fail the world, what would come
of it? ] do not mean any disFespect
to any other great people when ]
say that America is the hope of the
world; and if she does not justify
that hope the results are unthinkable.
Men will be thrown back upon the
bitterness of disappointment not only,
but the bitterness of despair. All
nations will set up as hostile camps
again; the men at the peace confer
ence will 90 home with their heads
upon their breasts, knowing that
they have failed-for they were
hidden not to come home from there
until they did something more than
sign treaty of peace.
Nothing But Paper.
Suppose we sign the treaty of
peace and that it is the most salts
! factory treaty of peace that the con-
fusing elements of the modern world
will afford and go home and think
about our labors; we will know that
we have left written upon the histor-
ic table at Versailles, upon which
Vergennes and Benjamin Franklin
wrote their names, nothing but a
modern scrap of paper; no nations
united to defend it, no great forces
combined to make it good; no assur-
ance given to the down-trodden and
fearful people of the world that they
shall be safe. Any man who thinks
that America viii take part in giving
that world any such rebuff and dis
appointment as that does not know
America.
II invite him to test the senti-
ments of the nation. We set this
up to make men free and we did not
conhne our conception and purpose
to America, and now we will make
men free. If we did not do that
the fame Of America would be gone
and all its powers would be dissi-
pated. It then would have to keep
its power for those narrow, selfish,
provincial purposes which seem so
dear to some minds that have no
sweep beyond the nearest horizon.
should welcome no sweeter chal-
lenge than that. / have fighting
blood in me and it is sometimes a
delight to let it have scope, but if
it is a challenge on this occasion, it
will be an indulgence. Think of the