RENE VIVIANI Gentlemen: Once more, my fellow countrymen and I are admitted to the honour of being present at a sitting in a legislative Chamber. May I be permitted to express our emotion at this solemn derogation against rules more than a century old, and, so far as my own person is concerned, may I say that, as a member of Parliament accustomed for twenty years to the passions and storms which sweep through political assemblies, I appreciate more than any one at this moment the supreme joy of being near this chair, which is in such a commanding position that however feeble may be the voice that speaks thence, it is heard over the whole world. Gentlemen, I will not thank you; not because our gratitude fails, but because new words to express it fail. No, I do not thank you for your welcome. We all felt, my companions and myself, that the manifestations which rose toward our persons came not only from your lips. We felt that you were not merely fulfilling the obligations of international courtesy. Suddenly, in all its charming intimacy, the complexity of the American soul was revealed to us. When one meets an American, one is supposed to meet a practical man, merely a practical man, caring only for business, only interested in business. But when at certain hours in private life one studies the American soul, one discovers at the same time how fresh and delicate it is; and when at certain moments of public life one considers the soul of the Nation, then one sees all the force of the ideals that rise from it: so that this American people, in its perfect balance, is at once practical and sentimental, a realizer and at dreamer, and is always ready to place its practical qualities at the disposal of its puissant thoughts. And see, gentlemen, what a glorious comparison, to our profit, to yours also, we can establish between our enemies and us. Entrusted with a mandate from a free people we came among free men to compare our ideas, to exchange our views, to measure the whole extent of the problems raised by this war. And all the allied nations, simply because they repose on democratic institutions, through their governments meet in the same lofty region, on equal terms, in full liberty. I well know that at this very hour, in the Central Empire, there is an absolute monarch who binds to his will by vassal links of steel other peoples. It has been said this was a sign of strength: it is only a derisive appearance of strength. And in truth, only a few weeks ago, on the eve of the day when outraged America was about to rise in its force, on the morrow of the day when the Russian revolution, faithful to its alliance, called at once its soldiers to arms and its people to independence, this absolute monarch was seen to totter on the steps of his throne, as he felt the first breath of the tempest pass over his crown. And he bent toward his people in humiliation, and in order to win its sympathy borrowed from free peoples their highest institutions and promised his subjects universal suffrage. Here, as in the crucial hours of our history, as in these of yours, it is liberty which clears the way for our soldiers. We are all now united in our common effort for civilization, for right. The day before yesterday, in a public meeting at which I was present, I heard one of your greatest orators say with deep emotion: "It has been sworn on the tomb of Washington." And I understood the fuli emotion and import of those words. If Washington could rise from his tomb, if from his sacred mound he could view the world as it now is, shrunk to smaller proportions by the lessening of material and moral distances, and the increase of every kind of communication between men, he would feel his labors are not yet concluded; and that, just as a man of superior and powerful mind has a debt to all other men, so a superior and powerful nation owes a debt to other nations; after establishing its own independence it must aid others to maintain their independence or to conquer it. This is the mysterious logic of history which President Wilson so marvelously understood, thanks to a mind as vigorous as it is subtle, as capable of analysis as it is of synthesis, of minute observation followed by swift action. It has been sworn on the tomb of Washington. It has been sworn on the tomb of our allied soldiers, fallen in a sacred cause! It has been sworn by the bedside of our wounded men! It has been sworn on the heads of our orphan children! It has been sworn on cradles and on tombs! It has been sworn! |