The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1919-02-25
AMERICA TRUSTED BY THE WORLD

feeling, that he was not there to assert
an individual Judgment of his own, but
to try to assist the cause of humanity.
tApplause.l
And i'll the midst of it all every inter
est seeks out first of all, when it reaches
Paris, the representatives of the United
States. applause Why? Because
and | think I am stating the most won
derful fact in history-because there is
no nation in Europe that suspects the
motives of the United States Great APP
plause.)
| have been searching for the funda
mental 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 of because we thought
we could make more by staying out than
by going in. And all of sudden, in a
short Is months, the whole verdict was
reversed There can be but one explana-
tion for it. They saw what we did
that without making a single claim we
put all our men and all our means at the
disposal of those who were fighting for
cause. the cause of human right and
justice, and that we went in, not to sup
port their national claims, but to support
the great cause which they held in COM
mon. tApplause.l
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.
And now do you realize that this conf
dence we have. established throughout the
world imposes burden upon us-if you
choose to call il a burden 1t is one of
those burdens which any nation ought to
be proud to carry. Any man who resists
the present 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 human
kind forever
Hhe Europe that | left the other day
was full of something that it had never
felt fill its heart SO full before 1t was
full OF hope. The Europe of the second
year of the war, the Europe of the third
year OF the war, was sinking to a 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 could clear
their territories OF invading armies; they
hoped they could set up their homes and
start their industries afresh But they
thought it would simply be the resump-
ton OF the old life that Europe had led
led in fear. led in anxiety, led in constant
and suspicious watehfulncss. They new
er dreamed that it would be Europe OF
settled peace and of justified hope =
And now these ideals have wrought
this new magic, that all the peoples OF
Europe are buoyed up and confident in
the spirit of hope. because they believe
that we are at the eve of new age in the
world when nations will understand one
another. when nations will support one
another in every just cause, when ma
| tions viii unite every moral and every
| physical strength to see that the right
shall prevail. tApplause.1
| Ii America were at this iuneture L
fail the world, what would come of it
| do not mean any disrespect to any othe
great people when | say that America i