The free press. (Poplarville, Miss.) 1890-19??, 1919-02-27

not grounds for personal pride. I'd be
the most stuck-up man in the world.
And 1t has been an infinite pleasure to
me to see those gallant soldiers OF
ours, of whom the constitution of the
United States made me the proud com.
mander You made me proud of the
26th division, but J. command the 26th
division and see what they did under
my direction!
And everybody praises the American
soldier with the feeling that in prais
ing him he is subtracting from the
credit of no one else. | have been
searching for TIE 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.
Whole Verdict Reversed.
And all of a sudden, in a short Is
months, the whole verdict is reversed.
There can be but one explanation for
it. They saw what we did-that with.
out making a single claim we put all
our men and all our means at the dis
posal of those who were fighting for
their homes, in the first instance, but
for 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 in 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 of scholars when
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, l felt very
young indeed. told them that had
one of the delightful revenges that
sometimes comes to a man. All my
life I had heard men speak with
sort of condescension of ideals and
of idealists, and particularly those sep
arated, eLcloistered 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.
War Won BY Ideals.
And l said l have had this sweet re-
venge. Speaking with perfect frank.
ness in the name of the people of the
| United States | have uttered as the OBJ
| jects of this great war ideals and moth
| ing but ideals and the war has been
won by that inspiration. Men were
fighting with tense muscle and low
cred head until they came to realize
those things, feeling they were fight
ing for their lives and their country,
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 be-
cause they seemed to see something
that made that danger worth while.
Men have testified to me in Europe
| that our men were possessed by some
, thing that they could only call a reli-
gious fervor They were not like any
of the other soldiers. They had Wis
ion, they had 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
And now do you realize that this con-
fidence we have established through
out the world imposes burden upon
us-if you choose to call it burden. 1t
| is one of those burdens which any ma
| ton ought to be proud to carry. Any
man who resists the present tides that
run in the world will find himself
thrown upon a shore so high and bar
rem that it will seem as if he had been
| separated from his human kind for
ever,
Europe Full of Hope.
The Europe that l 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