New Britain herald., 1919-02-25

rem ember political ambitions which
IT was attempted to realize, and, while
they believe that men have come into
a different temper, they cannot forget
these things, and so they do NOT re-
sort to one another for a dispassionato
view Of the matters in cOntroversv
They resort to that nation which has
won the enviable distinction of being
regarded as the friend of mankind
Whenever it is desired 10 send .
small force Of soldiers to occun,, q
piece of territory where it is thought
nobody else will be welcome, thel. asl,
for American soldiers. And vhere
other soldiers would be looked nno,,
with suspicion and perhaps met with
resistance, the American soldier is
welcomed wit11> acclaim
7 have had SO many grounds for
pride on the other side of the water
that I am Very thankful that they arc
not grounds for personal pride but
for national pride. If thew were
grounds for personal pride I'd be the
most stuck-up man in the world
And it has been an infinite plea sure
to me to sec those ga liant soldiers of
ours, of whom the Constitution of the
United States made mo the proud
commander. You may he proud Of
the 18th division. and see what thov
did under my direction! And everv
body praises the American soldier
with the feeling that in praising him
he is subtracting from the credit of
no one else.
They SAW America Acted ideals.
have been searching for the fund
amenta1 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 be-
cause we thought We could make
more by staying out than by going in.
And. all of a sudden, in short eight
teen months, the whole verdict is re-
Versed. There can be but one ex-
/ PLANTATION for 1t. They saw what we
did-that, without making a single
claim, we put all our men and all our
paeans 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 claims, but to support the great
cause which they held in common
I And when they saw that America not
only held ideals, but enacted Ideals
they were converted to America and
! became firm partisans of those ideals
[ met group Of scholars when I
was in Pars--some gentlemen from
one of the Greek universities who had
come to see me. and in whose pre-
sence, or rather in the presence Of
whose traditions OF learning 7 felt
very young indeed. I told them that
, I had one Of the delightful revenges
that sometimes come to a man All
my life 7 had heard men speak with
a sort OF cOndescension of ideals and
Of idealists, and particularly those
: sepa rated encloistered persons whom
! they ChOoS" to term academic, who
were in the habit of uttering ideals in
/ tho frcc tmosphere, 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 the
l7nitd States. I have uttered as the OBJ
| jects Of this great war ideals, and
nothing but ideals and the war has
! been won by that inspira ton. Men
| were fighting with tense muscles and
! lowered head until they came to rea-
| lie these things, feeling they were
! fighting for their lives and their coun-
! try, and when these accents of wha
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 crusa-
| ders, and they found that these were
! strange men, reckless of danger not
! only, but reckless because they
seemed to see something that made
i that danger worth while. Men have
: testified to me in Europe that our
/ men were possessed by something
! that they could only call a religious
! feTvor. They were not like any of
! the other soldiers They had 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 Am erican
i soldiers were not trained long enough,
said: TT takes only half as long TO
| train an American soldier as any
! other. because you only have to train
! him to go one way" And he did only
so one way, and he never came back
! until he could do it when he pleased.
! Heart of Europe Full of Hope.
And now do you realize that this
confidence we have established
throughout the world imposes a bur
den upon us, if you choose to call
it a burden. It is one of those bur-
dens which any nation ought to be
J proud to carry. Any man who re-
! ssts the present tides that run in the
[ world will find himself thrown upon
| a shore so high and barren that it
will seem as if he had been separated
from his human kind forever
The Europe that 1 left the other
day was full of something that it had
! never felt fill its heart so full before