A wild cheer arose when the service flag of the Society, bearing no less than 217 stars in remembrance of members and their sons who have gone to make good their forefathers' pledge to France, was suddenly unfurled over the diners' heads.

Mr. Beck drew cheers with his reference to the spirit of France, which he declared would be among the united free states of the world. Ambassador Jusserand aroused great enthusiasm by his references to the feeling between France and the United States.

[Harrisburg Telegraph, December 11, 1917]

The red, white and blue and the blue, white and red-the Starspangled banner and the Tricolour-shone with equal luster over a thousand members and guests of The Pennsylvania Society of New York, who dined in the grand ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria last night in honour of France and her Ambassador, Jean Adrien Antoine Jules Jusserand. Words of affection for France and of America's opportunity to repay its obligation to the land of Lafayette were spoken by Theodore Roosevelt, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, James W. Gerard and the chairman, James M. Beck. What with the presence in balcony boxes of three hundred members of the Society of Pennsylvania Women, who had a dinner of their own in another part of the hotel, and then went to the ballroom to hear the speaking, and of about a thousand men crowding corridors and anterooms as well as the banquet hall, it was The Pennsylvania Society's biggest annual dinner. In the centre of the big room hung a service flag with 217 stars for members and sons of members. Noted portraits of Washington, Lafayette and Franklin were framed with greenery and white chrysanthemums above the speakers' table.

[The Daily Courier, Camden, N. J., December 11, 1917]

Former Ambassador Gerard, in his most interesting speech at the dinner of The Pennsylvania Society in New York last Saturday night, exposed the work of German propaganda in filling American school books with stories and songs going to impress on the mind of our youth the superiority and glory of Prussian Kultur. He had New York city school books with him, and quoted from them to show the nature of the poison they contained, remarking that

Pennsylvania school books were probably as objectionable. But Mr. Gerard made the diners sit up straight and grit their teeth when he told them how on October 25, 1915, Kaiser Bill "set his face within three inches of mine and shook his finger at me, saying, 'I will stand no nonsense from America after this war! America had better look out when this war is over!"" That threat should be embedded in the mind of every American with good red blood in his veins, and cause a resolution to be made at once by him that when this war is over the Kaiser, if alive then, will have to look out for his dynasty, and that means that America must win the war and settle the Prussian upstart for all time. The Hun must go, no matter how long he may continue to keep on his feet, and he appears to be tottering now, despite his successes in Italy and Russia.

Address by M. Stéphane Lauzanne*

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of The Pennsylvania Society:

It is a great pleasure for me to address such an audience at such a moment. This is an historical moment. May I say that we in France, we were awaiting it since thirty-two months. Since thirty-two months we were repeating to the world and to you Americans, who in the world are our oldest and dearest friends, we were repeating that somewhere in Europe there was a Nation in which no one could trust; a Nation for which the most solemn treaties were mere scraps of paper; a Nation which was a danger for the whole of humanity; and we were not the only ones to say that. Men in this country, men guided by courage and by conscience, repeated it with us, claimed it with us. You know these men. One of them is sitting by me, Mr. Wickersham, and another one is not there, and I regret it-Mr. Beck. When we said that, when we repeated that, you were listening to us, because you are friends; but very often you smiled and doubted and thought that we were exaggerating. Then, we said: "That is all right, let us wait and see. Truth is stronger than speeches; let us wait; truth will be known one day." Gentlemen, those days have come.

There was, first of all the day of February 3, when you, the most liberal and most peaceful Nation of the world, you felt that you could no longer sit at the same diplomatic table with a Nation without honour and without dignity, and you broke off with Germany.

Then there was another day, there was the day of April 2, when you did something more. You felt that your duty was not only to keep away from brutes and savages, but that it was also your duty to defend civilized men against brutality and savagery, and you declared war on Germany.

We were awaiting these days since thirty-two months, but we knew that they would come; we knew that they would come because we were fighting, struggling, suffering and bleeding for one thing for which you, yourselves in your history you had fought and

*Delivered by M. Stéphane Lauzanne at the Annual Meeting of the Society at the Bankers Club, April 17, 1917. The Hon. George W. Wickersham, Past President, presided. M. Lauzanne is Editor-in-Chief of Le Matin, of Paris, and a member of the Mission française in America.

struggled, suffered and bled; not for money, not for domination, not for territories, but for something which is much higher and much nobler-for an ideal. Our ideal, your ideal, is to restore in Europe a spirit of freedom, of justice, and above all of respect of international law. That spirit will be restored only when the other spirit, the spirit of brutality, of domination and of autocracy symbolized by Prussian militarism will have been extirpated from Europe.

That Prussian militarism must go. It will go when those who are affected by it will understand that they are not the strongest but the weakest; that they have not to dictate terms of peace, but that they have to agree to terms of peace; when they will understand that they have not to grant any pardon, but that they have to ask pardon on their knees to God and to men for the crime that they have committed against humanity in starting such a war! When they will understand that they haven't to offer, as an aim, not to annihilate this or that Nation, but that they have to respect the independence of every Nation in the world, big or small, strong or weak as the supreme law of Europe and of humanity. For this, gentlemen, we will fight, and we will fight to the bitter end-whatever may be the sufferings of the nation, whatever may be the hardness of destiny. In the dark days of the Battle of Verdun, General de Castelnau once said: "The whole French race will perish on the battlefield, rather than be subject to Germany." Well, this is as true today as it was a year ago. This is even more true today than it was a year ago; and the whole French race would perish gladly, rather than to live in a degraded humanity-for humanity would be degraded if ever Germany would be victorious all over the whole world.

But today there is no question of dying; today it is most heartily that we will continue to fight, and it is most heartily that we will continue to fight because we know that some help is going to come

to us.

There is a new combatant with us. You have given us your hand, the clean hand of a free people; and we have given you our hand, the clean hand of an unsubjected people.

Gentlemen, I told you about two great days which will remain eternally engraved in French hearts; but there will be a third one.

There will be the day when American soldiers, with their American flag, will pass under our Arch of Triumph in Paris adjacent to Champs-Elysées before going to battle. That day, when it comes, will be a day of tremendous joy all over France. It will be a day of tremendous joy all over France, because we will know that not far distant in the future is the day of victory. Understand me, gentlemen, not the victory of France, not the victory of England, not the victory of Russia or of the Allies, but the victory of right, of justice and liberty and civilization. I thank you.