OUR HERITAGE OF LIBERTY

M. Rene Viviani,

Former Prime Minister and Minister of Justice of France, President of the French Mission to the United States

Delivered before the Senate of the United States,

May 1st, 1917

RENE VIVIANI

Mr. President and Senators: Since I have been granted the supreme honor of speaking before the representatives of the American people, may I ask them first to allow me to thank this magnificent Capital for the welcome it has accorded us? Accustomed as we are in our own free land to popular manifestations, and though we had been warned by your fellow-countrymen who live in Paris of the enthusiasm burning in your hearts, we are still full of the emotion raised by the sights that awaited us.

I shall never cease to see the proud and stalwart men who saluted our passage; your women, whose grace adds fresh beauty to your city, their arms outstretched, full of flowers; and your children hurrying to meet us as if our coming were looked upon as a lesson for them-all with one accord acclaiming in our perishable persons immortal France.

And I predict there will be a yet grander manifestation on the day when your illustrious President, relieved from the burden of power, will come among us bearing the salute of the Republic of the United States to a free Europe, whose foundations from end to end shall be based on Right.

It is with unspeakable emotion that we crossed the threshold of this legislative palace, where prudence and boldness meet, and that I for the first time in the annals of America, though a foreigner, speak in this hall which only a few days since resounded with the words of virile force.

You have set all the democracies of the world the most magnificent example. So soon as the common peril was made manifest to you, with simplicity and within a few short days you voted a formidable war credit and proclaimed that a formidable army was to be raised. President Wilson's commentary on his acts, which you made yours, remains in the history of free peoples the weightiest of lessons.

Doubtless you were resolved to avenge the insults offered your flag, which the whole world respected; doubtless through the thickness of these massive walls the mournful cry of all the victims that criminal hands hurled into the depths of the sea has reached and stirred your souls; but it will be your honor in history that you also heard the cry of humanity and invoked against autocracy the right of democracies.

And I can only wonder as I speak what, if they still have any power to think, are the thoughts of the autocrats who three years ago against us,