President Wilson In France![]() On December 14, 1918, President Wilson arrived in Paris. He had by leaving North America done something never done before by an American president; but he was never afraid to establish a new precedent if he believed his duty called upon him to do so. Very rarely have the presidents gone in person before Congress to read their messages, but Woodrow Wilson revived the custom. In leaving the continent, however, he was not reviving an abandoned custom but establishing an entirely new precedent. He sailed on one of the huge American transports, the George Washington, and was wildly welcomed upon his arrival at Brest, the American base in France. [Illustration: A photograph of the United States Transport George Washington taken from an airplane convoying the steamer out to sea. From the forward mast is flying the President's flag, distinguishable by the four white stars. At the bow and stern can be seen the naval guns, used formerly in case of submarine attack.] In Paris, at a great dinner given in his honor, he was welcomed by President Poincare in the following words:-- Mr. President: Paris and France awaited you with impatience. They were eager to acclaim in you the illustrious democrat whose words and deeds were inspired by exalted thought, the philosopher delighting in the solution of universal laws from particular events, the eminent statesman who had found a way to express the highest political and moral truths in formulas which bear the stamp of immortality. They had also a passionate desire to offer thanks, in your person, to the great Republic of which you are the chief for the invaluable assistance which had been given spontaneously, during this war, to the defenders of right and liberty. Even before America had resolved to intervene in the struggle she had shown to the wounded and to the orphans of France a solicitude and a generosity the memory of which will always be enshrined in our hearts. The liberality of your Red Cross, the countless gifts of your fellow-citizens, the inspiring initiative of American women, anticipated your military and naval action, and showed the world to which side your sympathies inclined. And on the day when you flung yourselves into the battle with what determination your great people and yourself prepared for united success! Some months ago you cabled to me that the United States would send ever-increasing forces, until the day should be reached on which the Allied armies were able to submerge the enemy under an overwhelming flow of new divisions; and, in effect, for more than a year a steady stream of youth and energy has been poured out upon the shores of France. No sooner had they landed than your gallant battalions, fired by their chief, General Pershing, flung themselves into the combat with such a manly contempt of danger, such a smiling disregard of death, that our longer experience of this terrible war often moved us to counsel prudence. They brought with them, in arriving here, the enthusiasm of Crusaders leaving for the Holy Land. It is their right today to look with pride upon the work accomplished and to rest assured that they have powerfully aided by their courage and their faith. Eager as they were to meet the enemy, they did not know when they arrived the enormity of his crimes. That they might know how the German armies make war it has been necessary that they see towns systematically burned down, mines flooded, factories reduced to ashes, orchards devastated, cathedrals shelled and fired--all that deliberate savagery, aimed to destroy national wealth, nature, and beauty, which the imagination could not conceive at a distance from the men and things that have endured it and today bear witness to it. In your turn, Mr. President, you will be able to measure with your own eyes the extent of these disasters, and the French Government will make known to you the authentic documents in which the German General Staff developed with astounding cynicism its program of pillage and industrial annihilation. Your noble conscience will pronounce a verdict on these facts. Should this guilt remain unpunished, could it be renewed, the most splendid victories would be in vain. Mr. President, France has struggled, has endured, and has suffered during four long years; she has bled at every vein; she has lost the best of her children; she mourns for her youths. She yearns now, even as you do, for a peace of justice and security. It was not that she might be exposed once again to aggression that she submitted to such sacrifices. Nor was it in order that criminals should go unpunished, that they might lift their heads again to make ready for new crimes, that, under your strong leadership, America armed herself and crossed the ocean. Faithful to the memory of Lafayette and Rochambeau, she came to the aid of France, because France herself was faithful to her traditions. Our common ideal has triumphed. Together we have defended the vital principles of free nations. Now we must build together such a peace as will forbid the deliberate and hypocritical renewing of an organism aiming at conquest and oppression. Peace must make amends for the misery and sadness of yesterday, and it must be a guarantee against the dangers of tomorrow. The association which has been formed for the purpose of war, between the United States and the Allies, and which contains the seed of the permanent institutions of which you have spoken so eloquently, will find from this day forward a clear and profitable employment in the concerted search for equitable decisions and in the mutual support which we need if we are to make our rights prevail. Whatever safeguards we may erect for the future, no one, alas, can assert that we shall forever spare to mankind the horrors of new wars. Five years ago the progress of science and the state of civilization might have permitted the hope that no Government, however autocratic, would have succeeded in hurling armed nations upon Belgium and Serbia. Without lending ourselves to the illusion that posterity will be forevermore safe from these collective follies, we must introduce into the peace we are going to build all the conditions of justice and all the safeguards of civilization that we can embody in it. To such a vast and magnificent task, Mr. President, you have chosen to come and apply yourself in concert with France. France offers you her thanks. She knows the friendship of America. She knows your rectitude and elevation of spirit. It is in the fullest confidence that she is ready to work with you. President Wilson replied:-- Mr. President: I am deeply indebted to you for your gracious greeting. It is very delightful to find myself in France and to feel the quick contact of sympathy and unaffected friendship between the representatives of the United States and the representatives of France. You have been very generous in what you were pleased to say about myself, but I feel that what I have said and what I have tried to do has been said and done only in an attempt to speak the thought of the people of the United States truly, and to carry that thought out in action. From the first, the thought of the people of the United States turned toward something more than the mere winning of this war. It turned to the establishment of eternal principles of right and justice. It realized that merely to win the war was not enough; that it must be won in such a way and the question raised by it settled in such a way as to insure the future peace of the world and lay the foundations for the freedom and happiness of its many peoples and nations. Never before has war worn so terrible a visage or exhibited more grossly the debasing influence of illicit ambitions. I am sure that I shall look upon the ruin wrought by the armies of the Central Empires with the same repulsion and deep indignation that they stir in the hearts of the men of France and Belgium, and I appreciate, as you do, sir, the necessity of such action in the final settlement of the issues of the war as will not only rebuke such acts of terror and spoliation, but make men everywhere aware that they cannot be ventured upon without the certainty of just punishment. I know with what ardor and enthusiasm the soldiers and sailors of the United States have given the best that was in them to this war of redemption. They have expressed the true spirit of America. They believe their ideals to be acceptable to free peoples everywhere, and are rejoiced to have played the part they have played in giving reality to those ideals in cooeperation with the armies of the Allies. We are proud of the part they have played, and we are happy that they should have been associated with such comrades in a common cause. It is with peculiar feeling, Mr. President, that I find myself in France joining with you in rejoicing over the victory that has been won. The ties that bind France and the United States are peculiarly close. I do not know in what other comradeship we could have fought with more zest or enthusiasm. It will daily be a matter of pleasure with me to be brought into consultation with the statesmen of France and her Allies in concerting the measures by which we may secure permanence for these happy relations of friendship and cooeperation, and secure for the world at large such safety and freedom in its life as can be secured only by the constant association and cooeperation of friends. I greet you not only with deep personal respect, but as the representative of the great people of France, and beg to bring you the greetings of another great people to whom the fortunes of France are of profound and lasting interest. This meeting of the American and the French presidents at a banquet in the French capital is a remarkable incident in the history of the world. The statement of the likelihood of such a meeting would have been ridiculed before the war. [Illustration: President Wilson driving from the railroad station in Paris with President Poincare of France to the home of Prince Murat, a descendant of Marshal Murat, Napoleon's great cavalry leader.] As we read the speeches, however, and grasp their full meaning, we understand that the most remarkable fact about the historic meeting is that the leaders of two great republics met with minds and hearts set upon justice. They were determined that the weak who had suffered unimaginable wrong should not fail to secure justice because they were weak and they were equally of a mind that the high and mighty who were responsible for these wrongs should not escape justice because they were high and mighty. Many times in the history of the world, meetings of the great have been remembered because of the show of Might, on every hand. The meeting of President Wilson and President Poincare in Paris on December 14, 1918, will never be forgotten because it was the greatest demonstration the world has ever seen of the power of Right. ******************* Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,-- Yet that scaffold sways the future, And, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, Keeping watch above His own. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. November 11 1918 Redeemed Italy ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Feedback |