First World War Centennial

XVII

AT THE PHILADELPHIA LUNCHEON

wednesday, may 9th

Ladies and Gentlemen:

I WISH I could find words which could clearly and truthfully express the deep emotion my fellow countrymen and myself have felt since we arrived in this city, in this city which has the best of rights to be proud of its achievements, whether looking back into the past it dwells on its traditions, or whether in times nearer to us it beholds the gigantic achievements which, from a commercial and industrial point of view, it has accomplished. It is here we find the cradle of the American nation in the house which we visited a few moments ago; it is here the independence of your nation was proclaimed; here that the first constitution of the United States was issued; here that the first Congress was held; here that the first President dwelt; here that in 1824 General Lafay­ette, remembering the glorious days of the Revo­lutionary War, came to pay a visit to the assembled representatives of the United States. We are not long in discovering that our expecta­tion of finding a unanimous welcome in this great city was not vain; and the honour of receiving it would have come to us sooner to delight and stir us had it not been for an unfortunate accident which delayed us on the road.

Wherever we have gone, we have felt your hearts beat for us, we have been escorted in tri­umph through the streets by enthusiastic crowds of men, women, and children. And now in this gigantic hall, after all the enthusiasm we have passed through, we meet with the most exquisite and delicate courtesies which in the splendid generosity of your nature you have lavished upon us. It seems as if you were resolved to bring before our eyes dear memories of France, for the lilies and roses which embellish this hall are flowers of our country and in them we behold the smiles of our beloved motherland. Behind us shine the colours which reflect upon us the glory of our flag, and, more lovely still, above us, in the gal­lery, is the wonderful wreath of flowers formed by the women of this city here gathered together.

But all of you that are now listening to me fully realize that we are not sitting here to-day at this fraternal banquet for the sole purpose of exchang­ing words of friendship with you and of tasting a pure and absolute joy, the very taste of which, for nearly three years, has been denied us. We are not here only to exchange a few words and to toast each other; we are not here only to grasp your outstretched hands, to enjoy the emotions your enthusiasm raises. No, we are here in order to respond to earnest and solemn words which in the Hall of Independence, this morning, were spoken by representatives of various creeds, and to which your Mayor has just alluded. We are here in order to rise above even the joy of such moments: we are here in order earnestly to consult with one another concerning the gigantic task the hands of our common enemy thrust first upon us, and next upon you.

Across the Atlantic Ocean, four thousand miles from here, lies a land which is called France; it wished to live at peace with the whole world; it loved all humanity; it knew it had done its full share in civilization by shedding its blood re­peatedly for the noble ideals that have been car­ried all over the universe with its flag. But in spite of its love of peace, in spite of its pacific attitude, and, although it had made the greatest possible sacrifices in order not to disturb the peace of the world, Germany attacked it savagely in the month of August, 1914, and it had to face the ag­gression alone, it was forced to rise against the barbarians whose hordes had flooded its land.

What are we fighting for? We are fighting for our territories; we are fighting in order that the accumulated achievements of our ancestors should not be sullied by the invader; we are fighting to remain worthy of our ancestors, and because it is impossible that when the motherland is assaulted, its sons should not rise to hurl back the enemy who is defiling its soil.

But this is only the material side of things: it is only the material side of history. You have fully realized the deep meaning of the war that has been thrust upon us. As our ancestors did in the past, we in our turn fight for the very stones of our roads: we fight for our hearths: we fight for the industrial and commercial wealth which the hands of generations have piled up. But better still, we fight for the very idea of France: we fight for humanity: we fight for liberty and for democracy. And in the midst of innumerable sufferings which are heaped upon our land: in the midst of our sor­rows and of the anxiety which, in spite of our own fortitude, often tear our hearts, our present French generation is proud, proud of the testimony which it renders itself, and which friendly and allied countries like America render us. And as regards this testimony which comes to us from America, allow me to quote the famous saying that some contemporaries already judge as posterity will judge and say:

"To us America is a living posterity and speaks for it."

Allow me to express the pride which fills our souls when we feel that we have not sunk below the level of our great ancestors; like them, we fight for the defence of the fatherland: we fight for the defence of French ideas, for the defence of the French Revolution. Like them at great cost perhaps, we defend all that is sacred and pure in humanity, those ideals whose extinction would deprive our lives of the very ends and joys and meaning of life. We have risen in fight and we shall endure, feeling that future generations will turn gratefully, not to the memory of a particular man, but to that of the whole present generation which has immolated itself, which has shed its blood in sacrifice, in order that France might not succumb and that by saving France a moral disas­ter might be spared all humanity.

As for you, when the call of your illustrious President came you at once looked into the very heart of things: you realized the gravity, the wide-reaching consequences of the questions at stake: you realized that our cause was just and true, and that, if so many allied nations have rallied round France, if wonderful England has called from her soil millions of soldiers, if Russia, if Italy came to our side, it was because our cause was a just one and worthy to be defended. And there is no per­son in the world that has ever expressed the justice and the sanctity of this cause in nobler words than Mr. Wilson in his incomparable message, which we French people hold so dear to our hearts that it has been read in all our schools, so that our children and the children of our soldiers may know its beauty and nurture their souls with the in spiring philosophy it contains. No one in more forcible words has defined the deeper meaning of this war. It is not for territory, for moral or material advantages, in a spirit of conquest or aggression, that we are fighting, not because we are a people of prey; no, but because we are threatened by a nation of prey because, one and all, we are defending liberty. A few moments ago your Mayor was speaking of the future. He said: "We are one in heart and soul." And he greeted the flags under which, different in formation but one in soul, your soldiers and ours advance toward that future. It is not true that the allied nations march under different flags. The French flag, the American, the Russian, the English, the Italian, are but the flags of nations. Their real flag is the flag of humanity, the flag which waves so high that it can be seen by all men in the world: a flag that shines so radiant that all men on earth long to see the promises of liberty of equality and justice which its folds contain and announce, shower down on all the earth.

It is under this flag, the flag of humanity, that your children will march to battle. I greet their labours of liberation in advance; in advance I salute their courage, as with all the fervour of piety I bow my head before all the soldiers of liberty who have resisted the on-sweeping avalanche and have fallen in the holiest of causes.

And now we have exchanged those words that rise to the lips from the heart, now that I have tried to express something of the enthusiasm that burns in mine, allow me to finish this too-short speech in which, in order to try and win your hearts, I have put my whole soul, and ask you to drink to the health of the first magistrate of the Republic of the United States, your illustrious President, Woodrow Wilson.