VI
AT THE CONGRESS HOTEL, CHICAGO
FRIDAY, MAY 4TH
MR. McCormick has just recalled in the most flattering words, words which have gone straight to our hearts, the glorious memories of our common history. He has reminded us that one hundred and forty years ago Lafayette first set his foot upon American soil accompanied by only eleven officers. And I wonder, as I speak, what Lafayette would think of the development of his adventure. He well knew that he brought the help of French arms to the cause of American independence. His pride was to be the companion in arms of your great Washington; he might well suppose that the independence thus implanted on your soil would long flourish and that his name would be revered by all American hearts and consciences. But could he foresee that one hundred and forty years later, republican France, after years of monarchy, after winning its own independence, after helping other nations to win theirs, would finally be drawn against its will into the vastest conflict known to history; and that other Frenchmen coming to your land would find not only the proud memory of his name, but such expressions of gratitude as you uttered a few moments ago. Let me say, however, without diminishing in France itself the part France has played, that already through Lafayette himself you have paid in part your debt of gratitude. It is because Lafayette came to this land in his youth, it is because he lived side by side with your great and simple Washington, it is because he saw the rise of your puissant American independence, that he was able to bring back to France the lessons and virtues that were taught him here; and that in his maturity and green old age he brought to our land the benefit of liberal ideas, of the lofty conscience and wide outlook he owed to your land. Thanks to you he was in France, from 1815 on till his death, one of the most stalwart pioneers of republican and democratic ideas; and it is to him we owe in part the republican conquests we have made. Thus, when we recall all these glorious memories that seem to mingle in the folds of our two flags, we can show the world what two great democracies can do. Absolute monarchs imagine that they can conquer other peoples by the marriages they make, and by setting on all the thrones of Europe their relatives and representatives. But we draw closer the links that bind our hearts together by daily contacts, by daily exchanges of our feelings and our thoughts, by a daily communion of souls, by the daily contemplation of our great common liberty. And thus our brotherly friendship did not need to be written in treaties, for it was a living force in our hearts and souls. And so in the tragic days that came upon France, in those hours decisive, not only in its history, but in the history of the world, it was a comfort and help to feel, from the beginning, the vast soul of America beat in harmony with ours. If any doubts as to the justice of our cause had ever arisen in us, we should have ceased to doubt when, looking across the huge expanse of sea, we saw all thinking Americans turn to our side, and, so far as they could, by their sympathy, by the benefits they showered on the heads of our dying, our orphans, prove to us the ardour of a sympathy which in those tragic hours raised and lifted us above our very selves. And if from the first you gave us the inestimable benefit of your moral support, it is because you are a great democracy, it is because we are a great democracy; because in Europe or in France there are freemen who were thus agreed in soul to raise yet higher the flag of democracy before the onset of an autocracy which is tottering to its fall. Already with fire and sword, by the valour of our children, the strength of our arms, we have passed beyond the rampart it has raised, and above it we have spread the radiance of all the ideas of liberty. Come to us, American brothers, come and fight side by side with your French brothers, with your allied brothers: come under your glorious banner to fight for the democracy of the world, and show all men that when the rights of a single nation are violated, the rights of all nations are trampled under foot. In the message of Mr. Wilson, so incomparable in its grandeur and nobility that it went to the heart of hearts of France, and that the Government of the Republic has placarded it in every village in France and had it read and interpreted to all our children in the schools, your illustrious President made manifest the ideas of America. He expressed them too magnificently for me to attempt to express them in turn. But when I speak of democratic ideas, when I speak of violated rights to be avenged, of the sufferings endured by those who have fought for liberty and can only be repaid by victory, I cannot do better to symbolize my thoughts, to give them concrete form, than raise my glass in honour of the illustrious President of the United States.