Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1919-03-06


reaches Paris. the Representatives Of
the United States. Whyf Because
and I think l am stating the most
wonderful fact in history-because
there is no nation in Europe that sus
poets the motives of the United
States.
Would Have Nation Deserve L.
Was there ever SO wonderful a
thing seen before? Was there ever
any fact that so bound the nation
that had won that esteem forever to
deserve it, 20
i would not have you understand
that the great men who represent the
other nations there in conference are
disesteemed by those who know them,
But you understand the nations OF
Europe have again and again clashed
with one another in competitive in
terest. 1t is impossible for men to
forget between them in times past. II
is impossible for men to believe that
all ambitions have all of a sudden
been foregone. They remember ter
ritory that was coveted; they remem
Der rights that was attempted to ex-
tort; they remember political mem
Der rights that it was attempted to
realize-and, while they believe that
men have come into a different tenn
per, they cannot forget these things,
and 80 they do not resort to one an
other for a dispassionate view of the
matters in controversy. They resort
to that nation which has won the en-
viable distinction of being regarded as
the friend of mankind.
Whenever it is desired to send a
small force of soldiers to occupy a
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.
I have had so many grounds for
pride on the other side Of the water
that I am very thankful that they
are not grounds for personal pride.
I'd be the most stuck-up man in the
world. And it has been an infinite
pleasure to me to see those gallant
soldiers of ours, of whom the consti-
tuition of the United States made me
the proud commander. You may be
proud of the Twenty-sixth Division,
but l commanded the T~wenty-sixth
Division, and see what they did under
my direction.
How Europe Was Converted.
I have been searching for the fun
damental fact that converted Europe
to believe in us. Before this wal Eu-
rope 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 be-
lieved that we were holding off be-
cause we thought that we could make
more by staying out than by going in.
And, all of a sudden, in a short eight
cen months, the whole verdict is re-
versed. There can be but one expla-
nation for it. They saw what we did
that without making a single claim
we put all u men and all u means
at the disposal of those who were
fighting for their homes, in the first
instance, but for a 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 il common.
And when they saw that America
not only held ideals, but acted ideals,
they were converted to America and
became firm partisans Of those ideals.
I met a group Or scholars when I
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, / felt very
young indeed. I told them that / had
M of the delightful revenges that
sometimes comes to a man. All my
life I had heard men speak with a
sort to c-ondescension of ideals and of
idealists, and particularly those sep
arated, encloistered persons whom
they choose to term academic, who
were in the habit of uttering ideals in
the free atmosphere when they clash
with nobody in particular.
Has Had Sweet Revenge.
And l say l have had this sweet
revenge. Speaking with perfect frank
ness in the name of the people of the
United States, l have uttered as the
objects 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 re-
lize 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