First World War Centennial

XIX

THE MERCHANTS' ASSOCIATION LUNCHEON, NEW YORK CITY

THURSDAY, MAY 10TH

Gentlemen:

ON opening his admirable speech, Mr. Beck, in words which carry all the sacred emo­tion the name of France stirs in him, said that we were living thrilling hours and living them together. And it is because these hours are so thrilling that I asked myself how I could find, though accustomed to popular manifestations and meetings such as this, fit words to express in the name of France the infinite gratitude we owe the people of New York since we had the honour of arriving in this admirable city.

In his enumeration of the various greetings we have met, the Mayor spoke of the innumerable leg­ions of men who had acclaimed us, or rather, France, and in their acclamations brought to us the cry of their hopes, I should say, of their certainties. And next in the City Hall another greeting met us: need I say with what emotion we received it? And now to-day in this vast hall, too narrow to contain, I am told, all the members of the Associa­tion, you appear almost countless in my eyes, silent and seated when you listen, erect and thun­dering in applause when the name of France rings out. You are business men, the men toward whom France turned first and treated with when war broke out, a war no human brain could have foreseen. For till then all wars had seen armies with their provisions and ammunition fight a few months: no more. But we have seen a war whose weeks are months, whose months are years: we have seen hurricanes of steel such as no eye had even con­templated before. And we needs had to turn to you, business men, for we needed your credit, your labour, your shells, your munitions, your steel, your rails. And you gave all we asked for. Be thanked for your generous help, loyally and strenuously given. Thanks to you the French Army has been fed in ammunition. And be satisfied that if you on your side have brought all your skill, all your soul, I might say, to your untir­ing work, the French soldiers have made a worthy and efficient use of the tools you gave them: you have long known that; I teach you no new thing to-day when I say so. It is no reason, just be­cause you are engaged in vast enterprises and gigantic business undertakings, why your hearts and minds should sink to mere industrial commer­cialism: on the contrary, you have kept to your old traditions, strong in your hearts, of admira­tion for efforts in the general interests of human­ity, of the idealism represented by your flag; they dominate your business activities: you feel that in your business work considerations of humanity are never absent, since you are in constant touch with men of every sort, in sight of the wide hori­zons your hearts and energies contemplate con­tinually: and so, when your day's work is over, you give yourselves up with admirable devotion to the holy labours which give a dignity to life and bring admiration on man's efforts.

And so far as we are concerned, allow a French­man to take advantage of this occasion of speak­ing to a friendly country to dissipate the slanders that have sullied our name. Yes, France before the war was represented as a nation of rhetoricians and declaimers, a land of politicians. People re­sorted to Paris as to a paradise, to enjoy them­selves. And they were led to think that our great France, which contains eleven million of workmen, seven million of whom are peasants, was not a land of workers devoted to its daily labours. German slanders had effaced, so to say, the true glory of France, which is its uncompromising love of work, its strenuous labour, thrift, all the great virtues our ancestors have handed down to us. Now in this war which suddenly took on an industrial aspect, not only the courage of our sons, but the efficiency of our officers, our captains of industry who cannot be separated from the rest of France, sufficed to meet the tremendous problems that destiny forced upon us: all arose, our industrial leaders, our engineers, all our workers, and showed an ingeniousness, all the clarity of the French mind, its adaptability to new conditions, its powers of assimilating new ideas: French genius revealed itself. And it is, thanks to the cooperation of French industry and American help, that we were enabled to turn out millions of shells, of tons of steel, of rails, all the indispensable things that economize on the field of battle the blood of our children, and hurl into the German trenches our shot and shell before French heroism bounds forth to conquer them.

Just now your illustrious statesman, Mr. Choate, to whom you rightly addressed your acclamations, in which we join, in virile words, in a ringing voice that made one doubt whether he possibly could bear upon his shoulders the weight of more than three quarters of a century, Mr. Choate said that the American Flag and the French Flag could indeed mingle their folds, and your president expressed the same idea when he said the same wind would marry in a common ideal the Star Spangled Banner and ours.

But that prediction is already realized and other things will follow. The newspapers this morning tell us that yesterday in Paris a popular ceremony, to which Paris gave up all its soul enthusiastically, marshalled the American ambulances under the American Flag along all the great streets of our capital, acclaimed, need I say, by the heart of France represented by Paris.

And I say other things will follow. It is not only in the streets of the capital, joyous in spite of its sorrows, at the thought that Free America rallies at last to its side, it is not only in the streets of New York and Paris that the French and American Flags shall float: there they float among virile rejoicings, in civil joy: they attract the eyes of all our citizens. But there they are merely a promise and a symbol. Further on, beyond Paris, on the firing line where the hail of German shells falls incessantly, in the trenches where the English and French soldiers have exceeded in their heroism the bounds of human nobility, over these trenches the American Flag which is already unfurled over the Lafayette Air Squadron, side by side with the English and French Flags, will shortly float. Ah, when it returns, it will not be like the one which proudly gleams before our eyes. No; I warn you it will be torn to rags; it will bear in its folds not only the stars, but the rents that speak of the heroism of your children.

And when you come, it will be, as Mr. Beck said in magnificent words which are those of a writer and a philosopher at once, irresistibly carried to us by the deep reasons he analyzed. Of your entry into the war we never doubted, even in the hours when prophets of misfortune and doubters told US America was neutral for all time, and exacted peace at all costs. That we never be­lieved. We never believed the slanders that sought to cast a slur on your good name. Why you have come into this war Mr. Beck has said, and I prefer to leave to an American the responsi­bility of the assertions made. It was not on ac­count of the submarines which hampered your trade, it was not, even though that reason was enough, to avenge the deaths of the Lusitania atrocity, to avenge the innocent American men, women and children hurled into the icy waters, and who are lost to you forever. It is your honour, the honour of a free people, that your national grievances were not alone in your mouths, but the grievances of all humanity. It is not for American rights alone, but for human rights, for liberty, for democracy that you rose: it was to defend those immortal principles. And Mr. Choate may be free from all anxiety. We are all agreed, if not in speech, in heart. He said: "Hurry up! Why lose time?" We don't say that. We know what war is, for we have felt its full weight. We know how strenuous must be its preparation and that no detail can be neglected. And he said further: "We can never accept Germany's peace condi­tions." No: we can never accept Germany's peace conditions. Conditions of peace from a country which has come to consider all peoples as its serfs, which has imagined it could trample under its heavy foot the heart, conscience and soul of all humanity; conditions of peace from such a source cannot be accepted because they would humiliate the reason and conscience of humanity. We can have no peace until Alsace and Lorraine have been restored to us, since they are our property. And we are not selfishly fighting to gain a victory in this war, which we did not seek, to realize national aims. France has not, I conceive, so far led the world to look upon her as selfish. Ours is a noble race: it deserves your acclamations, and you are right in venerating it: your respect is due: for—allow a Frenchman to say so without accusing him of excess of vanity—there is no freer people, nor one that bears in its heart a more sacred emotion. It is not a selfish people: it has cast the children of France over all the earth, wherever there was liberty to defend: it has freed Europe by spreading the ideas of the French Revolution: it has sent the French Flag to shine on every battlefield on which men were fighting for humanity, and our desire, one with that of our Allies, is to establish guarantees against any possible repetition of such crimes.

You are business men: you respect your con­tracts, and you know that when any dispute arises justice must be sought from arbitration, from judges, a sovereign court, not from brute violence. Well, what prevails among private persons, among civilized citizens, why should the same thing not exist between nations? When war broke out that is what we proposed. We asked to carry the quarrel before the Hague Court; we asked for inquiries to be conducted, so as to bring to light the true state of things. We refused to enter this war until all appeals to justice and reason had been exhausted. The brutality of our enemies turned our efforts to naught. Ah, as some one said just now, they thought their hour had struck. Why discuss when one is the master? Why sub­mit to arbitration when one is a despot? Of what avail are reason and conscience when one's arm wields a ponderous sword and holds a torch to kindle fire in villages and towns? Of what avail are all these things, heart, reason, conscience? They count for naught: force, force alone reigns. Yes: but we too had force: we seized in our hands the glorious sword of France. And alone, or almost alone in those first days of war, we rallied, we recon­quered our invaded lands, and gave all the Allies of France the time to grow conscious of the great­ness of this drama, to rise to arms, to come to our side, and place their flags by ours. They are all assembled now, the soldiers of liberty, freemen from free peoples: all free men are now united in the fight for liberty and democracy. And we will never falter in that fight: we will fight on so long as the fight lasts, till the end. We will prevent Prus­sian militarism from reigning over the world. We will save the future generations, to whom at the cost of our blood and sorrows we transmit a sacred heritage, which they will surely hold. We will preserve all future generations against a tragedy as terrible as the one we are undergoing. In these moments of struggle and sacrifice, may infinite hope send its thrill through our hearts. To­morrow we shall see not only material, but moral victory shine before our eyes. And then final peace, if you will it as we will it, shall rise over all the earth, since no power of prey will any longer exist. All the sons of men, all the children of our children will at last live free lives, and die, satisfied, after giving humanity all that is best in their souls and hearts.