The Morgan City daily review. (Morgan City, La.) 1916-1920, 1919-06-03
President Wilson Pleads
for Nations
League
Speaks from Hilltop to Many
Thousands; Eul0gized to
Fallen Americans

on a grave-covered hill overlooking
Paris, President Wilson delivered
what it regarded by many as one of
his best addresses.
The scene was an inspiring one;
there were the long rows of veterans
who lined the narrow path along
which the President approached the
platform-on the side of the Ameri
can boys and on the other their
French comrades; on the platform
was a distinguished gathering of rep
resentatives of England, France, and
America; there also were many
thousands of citizens of America and
of the nations of Europe, Asia, South
America, Africa and Australia, many
of whom had journeyed thousands of
miles to visit the cemetery, Gold
Fort Valerian) and decorate the
graves of loved ones; and there were
the long rows of graves of the he
roes of the world war. As the Pres
ident ascended the platform and
looked out upon this scene he was
deeply moved This was evident not
only from his words but from his
manner as he spoke to the multitude.
First there was an eloquent eulo-
gy Of the brave fallen, as we'll as the
living, crusaders from America, "their
motherland" as the President chris
tened her; then there was graceful
and well-merited acknowledgment of
the fact that the noble women of
France shave given evidence of the
loving sense with which they receive
ed these dead as their own," for they
have cared for their graves with low
ing interest through all the months
that have gone by; and then the Pres
ident, referred, in intense earnestness,
to the matter of the Covenant of the
League Of Nations He said in part,
as follows:
at would be no profit to us to
eulogize these illustrious dead if
we did not take to heart the less ons !
which they have taught us. They are
dead; they have done their utmost
to show their devotion to great
cause, and they have left us to see
to it that that cause shall not be be-
trayed, whether in peace or in war.
1t is not necessary that l should
rehearse to you what these objects
were These men did not come |
across the seas merely to defeat Ger
many and her associated Powers in
war. They came to defeat forever
the things for which the Central
Powers stood. 1t is for us to
use our proper weapons Of counsel
and agreement to see to it that there
never is such war again. ). 1t is our
duty to take an maintain the safe
guards which will see to it that the
mothers of America and the mothers
of France and England and Italy and
Belgium and all other suffering ma
tions should never be called upon for
this sacrifice again. This can be
done. 1t must be done. And it will
be done. The thing that these men
left US, though they did not in their
counsels conceive It, is the great sin-
strument which we have just erected
in the League of Nations is the COW
enant of Governments that these men
shall have not died in vain.
"There is here and there an at
tempt to insert in the counsel of
statesmen the old reckoning of self
ishness and bargaining and national
advantage which were the roots of
this war, and any man who counsels
these things advocates renewal of
the sacrifice which men have made,
for if this is not the final battle for
right there will be another that will
be final"
There can be no doubt as to the
sincerity of the Presidents appeal
nor as to the genuineness of his be-
lief in the necessity for and the eff
ficiency of the Covenant in the franz
ing of which he has played such an
important part There is no ques-
tion about this, but there is ques-
tion-which remains yet to be an
swered by the American people here
at home, and by the members of the
United States Senate who are now
in far closer touch with their desires
than is the President after his long
absence from the country-as to
whether our people are prepared to
accept this League of Nations plan,