The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1919-03-06

pleGs, subdued to this feeling, that he
| was not there to assert an individual
| judgment Of his own, but to try to
assist the cause of humanity
"And In the midst OF it all every in
| terest seeks out first of all, when it
reaches Paris, the representatives OF
the United States. Why? Because,
and think am stating the most won
| derful fact in Eistory-because there
is no nation IN Europe that suspects
the motives Of the United States
WAS there ever so wonderful a
thing seen before? Was there ever
so moving a thing? Was there ever
any fact that so hound the nation that
had won that esteem forever to de-
serve it?
81 would not have you understand
that the great men who represent the
other nations there in conference are
disesteemed by those who know them
Quite the contrary. But you under
stand that the nations of Europe have
again and again cIashed with one an
other in competitive interest 1t is
impossible for men to forget those
sharp issues that we're drawn between
them in times past. 1t is impossible
for men to believe that all ambitions
have ali of a sudden been fOregone-
| They remember territory that was
coveted; they remember rights that it
was attempted to extOr-; they remem-
Der political ambitions which it was
attempted to realize-and, while they
believe that men nave come into diff
80, EOTCRf
these things, and so they do not resort
to one another for a dispass1onate
view of the matter in controversy.
They resort to that nation which has
won the enviable distinction of being
regarded as the friend of mankind.
Americans Popular.
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 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.
81 have had so many grounds for
pride on the other side of the water
that 1 am very thankful that they are
not grounds for personal pride. I'd be
the most stucl1up man in the world.
You may be proud of the 10Th Division,
but 1 commanded the 10Th Division,
and see what they did under my direc-
tionI And everybody praises the
American soldier with the feeling that
in praising him he is subtracting from
the credit of no one else. have been
searching for the fundamental fact
that converted Europe 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
were holding off because we thought
we could make more by staying out
than by going in. And all Of a sud
den, in a short eighteen months, the
whole verdict is reversed. There can
be but one explanation for it. They
saw what we did-that without max
ing a single claim we put.al our men
and all our means at the disposal Of
those who were fighting for their
homes, in the first instance.
"And when they saw that America
not only had ideals, but acted ideals,
they were converted to America and
became firm partisans of those ideals.
"I met a group of scholars when 1
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
those traditions of learning, I felt very
young indeed. told them that had
one of the delightful revenges that
sometimes comes to a man. All my
life 1 had heard men speak with a
sort of condescension of ideals and of
ideaIists, and particularly those sep
arated, encloistered persons whom
they choose to term academical, who
were in the habit of uttering ideals in
the free atmosphere when they clash
with nobody in particular.
American Ideals.
"And 1 said 1 have had this sweet
revenge. Speaking with perfect frank
ness in the name of the people of the
United States, 1 have uttered as the
object of this great war, ideals and
nothing but ideals, and the war has
been won by that inspiration Men
were fighting with tense muscle and
lowered head until they came to real
ize those things, feeling they were
fighting for their lives and their coun-
try, 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 pos
sessed by something that they could
only call a religious feTYor. They were
not like any Of the other soldiers.
They had a vision, they had a dream,
and they were fighting in the dream,
and fighting in the dream they turned
the whole tide of battle, and it never
came back.
"One of our American humorists.
meeting the criticism that American
eoIliorc uraro Dof trained long enough