Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1919-02-27

possible for men to forget those sharp
issues that were drawn between them
In times past.
whenever it is desired to send
small force Of soldiers to occupy
piece of territory where it is thought
nobody else will be welcome, they ash
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.
"And everybody praises the Ameri-
can soldier with the feeling that IN
praising him he is subtracting from
the credit of no one else.
81 have been searching for the
fundamental fact that converted Eu-
rope to believe in us. Before this
war Europe did not believe in us IS
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 were
holding off because we thought we
could make more by staying out than
by going in.
'And all of sudden, in a short
eighteen months, the whole verdict IS
reversed. There can be but one eX-
PLANTATION for it. They saw what we
did-that without making single
claim we put all our men and all or
means at the disposal of those VINO
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.
"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.
'T met a group of scholars when L
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 or
those traditions of learning, L felt
very young indeed. | told them that
| had one of the delightful revenges
that sometimes comes to q man. All
nv life I 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, VINO
we're in the habit Of uttering Ideals IL
the free atmosphere when they CLASH
with nobody in particular
- "And I said I have had this sweet
revenge. Speaking with perfect frank
ness in the name of the people OF tire
United States, I have uttered as the
objects of this greet war ideals amt
nothing but ideals, and the war has
been won by that inspiration.
"Men we're fighting with tense mus
Gle and lowered head until they came
to realize those things, feeling they
were fighting for their lives and the'f
country, and when these accents d
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, anu
they found that these were stran%e
men, reckless of danger not only, but
reckless because they seemed to SCI
something 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 Wis
ion. they had dream, and they We're
fighting in the dream, and fighting III
the dream they turned the whole tide
of battle and it never came back.
Gone Of our American kumOristS,
meeting the criticism that American
soldiers were not trained long enough,
said: Tt takes only half as long to
train an American soldier as any 9TH
err. because you only have to train him
to go one way, and he did only go one
way, and he never came back until ne
could do it when he pleased
"mposes Burden Upon US"
"And now do you realize that this
confidence we have established
throughout the world imposes bur
den upon us-if you choose to call it
burden. 1t is one of those burdens
which any nation ought to be proud to
carry. Any man who resists the pres
emf 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 hu-
man kind forever.
''The Europe that I left the other
day was full of something that it had
never felt fill it's 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 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
some salvage; they hoped that they