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On this square, in the Governor's mansion, Mr. Balfour and his associates were entertained. Here also stands the statue of Stonewall Jackson, at the base of which a wreath was deposited. Another wreath was placed on the statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee, on another site in Richmond. The building in the center is the State Capitol, the main part modeled after the famous Roman building at Nimes, in the south of France, known as the Maison Carré. Just below the square, as one goes toward the River James, stands St. Paul's Episcopal Church, where Jefferson Davis was at Sunday morning service on April 9th when a message from General Lee was taken up the aisle to him in his pew. advising the evacuation of the city. In another direction, not far beyond Capito! Square, is the building in which President Davis lived, and known as the Confederate White House

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in to redress the balance of the old." The event recalled a famous prophecy made by Count Aranda, Spanish Commissioner at the signing of the Treaty of Peace in Paris in 1782: "A federal republic is this day born a pigmy, but the day will come when to these countries here it will be formidable as a giant, even a colossus."

German newspapers strangely represented this welcome to Mr. Balfour, M. Viviani, and Marshal Joffre as having been "cold." They said the French had blundered in sending to America Marshal Joffre, who "could not speak a word of English." Marshal Joffre probably won every non-German heart in the country. Never was a famous world-hero so democratic, so utterly unspoiled, so unconscious of his fame. He often reminded Americans of their own Grant, each a great soldier with a simple heart.

As to the purpose of the Missions and what they had accomplished, it could be said that their objects had been threefold to reach a complete understanding as to the prosecution of the war by the United States; to arrange for military and naval cooperation between the United States and her Allies; to discuss the financial assistance America would give, and to adjust questions of trade and shipping. On all points a satisfactory agreement had been reached. Mr. Balfour and the French Commissioners came with no suggestion of any political alliance, and President Wilson had made it known at once that there was no necessity for any formal compact. In other words, the understanding arrived at was what has sometimes been called "a gentlemen's agreement." The United States was drawn into the war much in the same way that Great Britain was driven to take up arms. No more than England had we gone to war for gain. Having been made to draw the sword, America was not to sheathe it until Prussia had ceased to be a menace to the peace of the world.

In Paris, enormous crowds, cheering tumultuously, welcomed home on May 23 the French Mission. Premier Ribot and other members of the Cabinet were at the station. "Why, this is like New York," said Marshal Joffre, as the automobile which conveyed him from the St. Lazare station. was halted in the density of the crowd. Police lines were

broken through by throngs of spectators, who surrounded the automobile, waving flags and handkerchiefs.

The French Commissioners had arrived safely at Brest, the naval station in northwestern France, after a pleasant voyage devoid of encounters with mines or submarines. In leaving Washington they had chosen a night special train and had gone to the station singly, so as not to attract attention. In New York, the port of their embarkation, they boarded at midnight an armed ship, already in midstream, which sailed immediately. Marshal Joffre during the voyage home answered two hundred and thirty of some eight hundred unanswered letters, which had been brought on board by his aide. He and M. Viviani had received altogether a few thousand letters from Americans and regretted much that it had been impossible to answer all, particularly those from children. They undertook, however, to acknowledge all communications containing money, the total amount received for various charities in France, being about 2,000,000 francs.

One of M. Viviani's first duties in Paris was to present to President Poincaré a letter addrest to him by President Wilson. This missive, which was an unusually long document of its kind, was understood to embody the President's general acceptance of the French Government's suggestions as to the form American intervention should assume and to express profound sympathy with a friendly, altho informal, partnership between two nations. What the French call "matériel" artillery, wagon-trains, motor-trucks, and drivers, all the technical corps that go to make up a combatant body-were to be supplied by the French for the present, but eventually, by the next spring at latest, it was expected that an American Expeditionary Force, several hundred thousand strong, as complete in every detail as the British army in 1916, would be in France. As matters turned out, there were in France by July 1, 1918, 1,000,000 American soldiers.

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After the receptions in Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal-the latter on May 30-the public heard nothing of Mr. Balfour until June 8 when a cable dispatch from London announced that he had arrived home safely. Mr.

Balfour's voyage had been so wrapt in secrecy, as far as the public were concerned, that when he arrived home few in England had been aware that he was due. His safety brought much satisfaction to officials in Washington who had surrounded his visit and that of M. Viviani and Marshal Joffre with greater precautions and secrecy than probably ever were undertaken before in this country. He spoke in terms of warmest appreciation of his visit. Said he, "I have been more kindly treated than any man ever was before."

Abridged from a larger compilation on the same subject, published in a volume of 370 pages, by the Funk & Wagnalls Company, in the summer of 1917, under the title "Balfour, Viviani and Joffre." Compiled by Francis w. Halsey.

V

A GREATER FOOD SUPPLY, THE SELECTIVE DRAFT, RED CROSS AND OTHER WAR WORKERS, THE FIRST LIBERTY

PERS

LOAN

April 6, 1917-October 27, 1917

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ERSONAL responsibility for the outcome of the war was soon brought home to every man and woman in the United States by President Wilson's appeal stirring every one to enlist somehow in the great civilian army without whose whole-hearted services "mere fighting would be useless." While he asked the merchant and middlemen to "forego unusual profits," the railroad-man to see that the "arteries of the nation's life suffer no obstruction," the miner to remember that "if he slackens or fails, armies and statesmen are useless," the manufacturer to "speed and perfect every process, and called upon all to correct the national fault of "wastefulness and extravagance," he emphasized most the imperative need of a greater food-supply. This part of his appeal evoked an immediate and dramatic response, but Germany, deceiving herself as she was constantly doing, hailed with delight his declaration that "the supreme need of our own nation, and of the nations with which we are cooperating, is an abundance of supplies, and especially of foodstuffs," and his urgent call to "young men and old alike," to "turn in hosts to the farms." Professor Wygodzinski, an agricultural expert of Bonn University, became so convinced from the President's appeal that "Nemesis was knocking at America's door and famine staring her in the face," that he announced confidently that "on the American wheatfield the war will be decided-in our favor." The Kölnische Zeitung, which characterized the President's appeal as "nothing but a cry of distress," argued that the war against Germany could not be won

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