I
STATEMENT BY M. VIVIANI TO THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PRESS
I PROMISED to receive you after having reserved, as elementary courtesy required, my first communication solely for the President. I have just had the honour, which I shared with the other members of the mission, of being received by him. I am indeed happy to have been chosen to present the greetings of the French Republic to the illustrious man whose name is in every French mouth to-day, whose incomparable message is at this very hour being read and commented upon in all our schools as the most perfect charter of human rights and which so fully expresses the virtues of your race—long-suffering patience before appealing to force; and force to avenge that long-suffering patience when there can be no other means.
Since you are here to listen to me I ask you to repeat a thousand fold the expression of our deep gratitude for the enthusiastic reception the American people has granted us in Washington. It is not to us, but to our beloved and heroic France that that reception was accorded. We were proud to be her children in those unforgettable moments when we read in the radiance of the faces we saw the noble sincerity of your hearts. And I desire to thank also the Press of the United States represented by you. I fully realize the ardent and disinterested help you have given by your tireless propaganda in the cause of Right: I know your action has been incalculable. Gentlemen, I thank you.
We have come to this land to salute the American people and its government, to call to fresh vigour our ancient friendship, sweet and comforting in the ordinary course of our lives, and which these tragic hours have raised to all the ardour of brotherly love—a brotherly love which in these last years of suffering has multiplied its most touching expressions. To us you have given help, not only materially, but by every act of kindness and good will: yet more; for us your children have shed their blood, and the names of your sacred dead are inscribed forever in our hearts. And it was with a full knowledge of the meaning of what you did that you acted. Your inexhaustible generosity was not the charity of the fortunate to the distressed: it was an affirmation of your conscience, a reasoned approval of your judgment. Your fellow-countrymen knew that under the savage assault of a nation of prey which has made of war, to quote a famous saying, its national industry, we were upholding with our incomparable allies, faithful and valiant to the death, with all those sons of indomitable England, who, shoulder to shoulder with us on the firing-line, are struggling for the violated rights of man, for that democratic spirit which the forces of autocracy were attempting to crush throughout the world. We are ready to carry that struggle on to the end.
And now, as President Wilson has said, the Republic of the United States rises in its strength as a champion of Right, and rallies to the side of France and her Allies. Only our descendants, when time has removed them sufficiently far from present events, will be able to measure the full significance, the grandeur of an historic act which has sent a thrill through the whole world. From to-day on all the forces of Freedom are let loose. And not only victory, of which we were already assured, is certain; the true meaning of that victory is made manifest; it cannot be merely a fortunate military conclusion to this struggle; it will be the victory of Morality and Right, and will for ever secure the existence of a world in which all our children shall draw free breath in full peace and in the undisturbed pursuit of their labours.
To accomplish this great work, which shall be carried to completion, we are about to exchange views with the men in your Government best qualified to help. The cooperation of the Republic of the United States in this world conflict is now assured. We work together as freemen who are resolved to save the ideals of mankind.