Belington progressive. [volume] (Belington, W. Va.) 1912-1927, 1919-06-05
WILSON EULOG|zES
AMERICAN DEAD
President Speaks in the Suresnes
Cemetery Near Paris.
LEAGUE FRUIT OF SACRIFICE
Asserts II Is the Duty of the Nations
to Prevent Mothers Going
Through the Suffering of
War Again.

Paris. May 31.-The text Of the
Memorial address of President Wilson
at Suresnes cemetery is as follows:
"Mr. Ambassador, Ladies and Gen
tlemen. Fellow Countrymen
mo one with heart in his breast,
no American. no lover of humanity,
can stand in the presence Of these
graves without the most profound emo
ton. These men who lie here are
men of unique breed. Their like
has not been seen since the days of
crusades.
"Never before have men crossed the
seas to foreign land to fight for
cause of humanity which they did not
pretend was particularly their own,
but knew was the cause of humanity
and of mankind And when they came
they found comrades for their courage
and their devotion. They found arm
les of liberty already in the field
men who, though they had gone
through three years of fiery trial,
seemed only to be just discovering, not
for a moment losing, the high temper
of the great affair; men seasoned in
the bloody service of liberty. Joining
hands with these, the men Of America
gave the greatest of all gifts-the gift
of life and the gift OF spirit.
Praises Unflinchlng Courage.
at will always be treasured mem
DRY ON the part of those who knew and
loved these men that the testimony Of
everybody who saw them in the field
of action was their unfiinching cour-
age, their ardor to the point of au-
dacity, their full consciousness of the
high cause they had come to serve and
their constant vision Of the issue.
st is Delighted to learn from those
who saw these men fight and saw them
waiting in the trenches for the sum
mons to the fight that they had touch
of the high spirit Of religion, that
they knew they were exhibiting a splr
It as well as a physical might, and
those of us who know and love Amer
lea know that they were discovering
to the whole world the true spirit and
devotion of their motherland. 1t was
America who came in the person Of
these men and who viii forever be
grateful that she was so represented.
And 1t is the more delightful to en-
terrain these thoughts because we
know that these men, though buried In
a foreign land, are not buried in an
alien soil, They are at home, sleep
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thought the same thoughts and enter
tanned the same aspirations. The no.
BILE women of Suresnes have given evil
dence of the loving sense with which
they received these dead as their own,
for they have cared for their graves,
they have made 1t their interest, their
loving interest, to see that there was
no hour of neglect and that constant
ly through all the months that have
gone by the mothers at home should
know that there were mothers here
who remembered and honored their
dead.
You have just heard In the beauti-
full letter from M. Clemenceau what /
believe to be the real message of
France to us on a day like this, a mes
sage of genuine comradeship, message
of genuine sympathy, and have no
doubt that If our British comrades
were here they would speak in the
same spirit and in the same language.
For the beauty Of this war is that it
has brought new partnership and a
new cOmradeship and a new under
standing into the field of the effort Of
the nation.
Lesson Taught by Sacrifices.
But it would be no profit to us to
eulogiZe these illustrious dead If we
did not take to heart the lesson which
they have taught US. They are dead;
they have done their utmost to show
their devotion to a great cause, and
they have left us to see to it that
that cause shall not be betrayed,
whether in war or peace. 1t is our priv
ilege and our high duty to consecrate
ourselves afresh on a day like this to
the objects for which they fought.
1T is not necessary that should re
hearse to you what these objects were.
These men did not come across the sea
merely to defeat Germany and her as
ISOLATED powers in the war. They
came to defeat forever the things for
which the central powers stood, the
sort of power they meant to assert in
the world.
$50 it is our duty to take and main
tain the safeguards 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 nations should never be
called upon for this sacrifice again.
This can be done. 1t must be done
And 1t will be done. The things that
these men left US, though they did not
in their counsels conceive it, is the
great instrument which we have just
erected in the league of nations.
The league of nations is the cove
nant of government that &hese men
shall not have died in vain. I like