Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1919-02-26

pride on the other side of the water
that / am very thankful that they are
not grounds for personal pride. I'd
be the most Stuck-up man in the
pleasure to me to see those gallant sol
diers of ours, Of whom the ConStitu-
ton of the United States made me the
proud commander. You may be proud
Of the Twenty-sixth division, but l
commanded the Twenty-sixth division,
and see what they did under my direc-
ton!
"And everybody praises the Ameri-
can soldier with the feeling that m
praising him he is subtracting from
the credit of no one else.
81 nave been searching for the
fundamental fact that converted Eu-
rope TO believe in us. Before this
war Europe 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 believed that we We're
holding off because we thought We
could make more by staying out than
by going in.
"And all of a sudden, in short
eighteen months, the whole verdict is
reversed. There can be but one en-
PLANTATION for it. They saw what we
did-that without making a SINCE
claim we put all our men and all our
means at the disposal of those who
were fighting for their homes, in the
first instance, but fer cause, tn.
cause of human rights and justice,
and that we went in, not to supper.
their national claims, but TO support
the great cause which they held In
common.
"Converted to America"
"And when they saw that America
not only held ideals, but acted ideals,
they were converted to America and
became confirmed partisans of those
ideals.
Il met group of scholars when |
was in Paris-Some gentlemen from
one of the Greek universities who haG
come to see me, and in whose pres.
ence, or rather in the presence ~
those traditions of learning, | felt
very young indeed | told them that
I had one of the delightful revengrs
that sometimes comes to man. All
my life | had heard men speak with
a sort of condescension of ideals and
of idealists, and particularly those
separated, encloistered persons whom
they choose TO term academic, wnJ
were in the habit of uttering ideals in
the free atmosphere when they clash
with nobody in particular.
"And l said ! have had this sweat
revenge. Speaking with perfect frank
ness in the name of the people of the
United States, / have uttered as the
objects of this great war ideals AM
nothing but ideals, and the war has
been won by that inspiration.
"Men were fighting with tense mus.
Gle and lowered head until they came
TO realize those things, feeling they
were fighting for their lives and thei.
country, and when these accents OF
what It was all about reached thea
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
because they seemed to See
that made that danger
worth while.
Men have testified to me in Europe
that our men were possessed by some
thing. that they could only call re
ligious fervOr. They were not like any
Of the other soldiers. They had a Wis
ion, they had dream, and they were
fighting in the dream, and fighting IL
the dream they turned the whole tide
of battle and it never came back.
"One of our American humOrists,
meeting the criticism that American
soldiers We're not trained long enough,
said: TT takes only half as long to
train an American soldier as any 9TH
er, because you only have to train him
to go one way, and he did only go one
way, and he never came back until he
could do it when he pleased
Mmposes. Burden Upon U.s."
"And now do you realize that this
we have established
the world imposes bur-
den upon us-if you choose to call 1t
burden. 1t is one of those burdens
which any nation ought to be proud to
carry. Any man who resists the pres
ent tides that run in the world will
find himself thrown upon shore so
high and barren that it will seem as If
he had been separated from his hui
man kind forever.
1.-THE Europe that l left the other
day was full of something that It had
never felt fill its heart SO full before.
It was full of hope. The Europe OF
the second year of the war, the Europe
of the third year of the war, was sink
ing to a sort of stubborn desperation.
They did not see any great thing TO be
achieved even when the war should
be won. They hoped there would be
~