would have preferred a grave in France, but added, "At last the world has learned the lesson that wars must end."

It was from such scenes of hopefulness as this that I went to the United States Senate, and there, to my utter dismay, I found that the very principles were being condemned for which American soldiers have been giving their lives.

It may seem presumptuous for a mere soldier, one among four millions, to take issue with one so high and dignified as a United States Senator. I claim no more credit for myself than is due to the lowest "buck" private who carried a rifle in the rear rank; but that lowest private can stand squarely on his two feet, look full in the face the most distinguished descendant of Rip Van Winkle who ever sat in the United States Senate, the greatest man who ever represented or misrepresented. the American people in that body, and say, "When it was a matter of the honor and integrity of our country; yes, when it was a matter of the life or death of our nation, I was on the firing line."

The plain soldier has earned a right to be heard. He asks that American

opinion hear him and then he says:

"We

We have accom

army by organiin organization.

have had enough of war. plished our end in the zation. We believe Internationally, we are unorganized. Internationally, we are in a state anarchy. We don't believe in anarchy. We believe in order through organization."

of

The soldier fought to make the world safe for democracy and he is going to fight to keep it safe. The American people accepted President Wilson's statement of our war aims, and supported the war with the conviction that the defeat of Germany would mean the birth of a new freedom. freedom. All of the belligerent countries and the great mass of mankind the world over accepted the Fourteen Points, one of which provided for a League of Nations, as the basis for the armistice, and as the only basis for a just and lasting peace. The fact that the soldier fought and bled and died for a

better order, that the American people poured out their money in the faith that a new era approached, that all the belligerent governments accepted the principle of a League of Nations, that the mass of mankind, the world over, has hoped and prayed for the end of war, did not prevent Senator Borah from saying on the floor of the United States Senate, without even a suggestion for better organization, "If the Savior of mankind should revisit the earth and declare for a league of nations, I would be opposed to it." Is this the representative of the American people or are they more truly represented by the men who made the supreme sacrifice for a better world?

Twenty-four hundred years ago Greece at Platæa defeated her Persian invaders and drove them finally and forever from her lands. To her dead soldiers she erected a monument. For that monument her poet, Simonides, wrote the Epitaph. In that epitaph he made the dead heroes speak and this is what they said: "If to die nobly is the chief part

of excellence, then to us of all men Fortune gave this lot; for, by hastening to set a crown of freedom on Hellas, we lie possessed of praise that grows not old." By so much as the freedom of the world today is of greater moment than was the freedom of Greece of old, by that larger measure do our dead heroes lie possessed of praise that can never grow old.

I speak and feel as I do, not primarily because I admire President Wilson as a great leader in a great cause, not primarily because I admire Mr. Taft as a man big enough to put principle above partisanship, not because of any debt I owe to any living man, but because of a debt I owe, and because of a debt you owe, to almost 100,000 of America's best citizens, who now lie sleeping in lonely graves in the far-off fields of France. To-day a voice comes to me and to you from that distant land. It speaks with one accord and asks, "Have we died in vain? Oh, have we died in vain!"

SPEECH DELIVERED BY

CAPTAIN THOMAS G. CHAMBERLAIN

Before the Mid-Continen: Congress for a League of Nations, St. Louis, Missouri, February 26, 1919.

ONE year ago I was in the city of Paris when forty German Gothas, painted black and flying at 120 miles an hour, came over the city and dropped their bombs. Great buildings were destroyed; men, women and children were killed. There were only forty planes. Why should there not be four thousand? If we go on under a system of competitive armaments, there will be, and the city will be destroyed in a single night, before there has been a declaration of war; and there is no city on the face of the earth that need not await the same fate. Considering the present development of the hydroplane