TRIBUTE TO LINCOLN

RENE VIVIANI

GENTLEMEN AND LADIES:

Before coming here we went to the field of silence to lay quick-fading flowers on the immortal tomb of Abraham Lincoln, and bear to his great shade the greeting of all France.

And I would have you know that however great the distance between Springfield and France may be, the radiance of his noble face has long been known in our native land. In no democracy, in no modern democracy, did any man offer the world a purer image than he by his noble career. That career is far better known to you than to me. You know that, born of the people, the son of a man who could not read, after having in his youth suffered every sort of privation, he rose through silent meditation, by study, to the full cultivation of his mind and the full development of his will. You know that silently he rose to the summit of civic honor: and that from the summit he had attained he looked with untroubled gaze upon a great, an heroic, a tragic duty: he knew that the minds of men cannot without abasement live in contact with injustice. And that is why whatever pity and compassion rent his soul, since the equality of all human beings must needs be proclaimed, since the laws must needs rise to the

level of man's dignity in all places, he let loose civil war upon his native land-that civil war whose heroes we have seen in their old age reconciled, wherever we have passed. On the morrow of his gigantic enterprise he died. He cannot be said to have been buried in his triumph: that triumph will last as long as an American is left to revere it, and we have come here to salute his great memory in the name of France, of the French Republic. But permit me to recall with just pride that the French of the French Revolution, of the Revolution of 1848, also proclaimed the rights of man. And this shows that all democracies, in spite of distance and time, are one. And when three years ago Imperial Germany in arms, without provocation, without a shadow of excuse, by right of force alone, rushed on France, tore up international rights and violated all human consciences, France with her allies defended those eternal principles. And for three years she has defended them. And now America in turn, to their defence rises at the call of her illustrious President, Mr. Wilson, who, too, though a man of thought and a philosopher, has seen he must become a man of action when these eternal principles exacted reparation and vengeance.

Now, we are all united in this great struggle, worthy to be ranked with the struggles of the

THE VOICES OF OUR LEADERS

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French Revolution. We all are united to defend right and justice. And our French hearts thrilled with gratitude when we heard the words of your President, of your Governor. Yes: we feel as if at every step in this blissful valley we found old memories of our beloved motherland, as if we had never left it. Here it was, as you said, Mr. President, that French missionaries, the first French to discover the Mississippi, came to labor, to live, to die. Here it was they founded the first government that ruled over this land which once was French, where the French flag floats once more in tragic hours, our flag which carries in its folds all our hopes, and calls to file every form of courage in all our sons. Here we find the shades and memories of our forefathers. You can well understand what emotions swell in the heart of a Frenchman when this tragic meeting comes about on American soil. But is it enough to evoke these memories in a speech? Must we bury all our ardent hopes in our hearts? I shall not forget, but transmit to my fellow countrymen your desire to pay back your debt of gratitude to France, in memory of LaFayette who brought here help and French soldiers to fight for American independence. But permit me, without any thought of diminishing the effect of your words, to define their full sense. It is not to France your debt

lies. What France did for America, she did for liberty, with no thought of exacting a reward for it some day. It is to all humanity your debt of gratitude should be paid: humanity and France here are one. Yes, it is because that noble land has at all times in its history held in its hands the fate of the world: it is because on our territory which seems to have been chosen by history as the meeting place for all combats and immolations, that the fate of the world has so often been decided; because our children with their hearts, their arms, their hands, their brains, are struggling even now to keep liberty from perishing, to keep disaster away from the whole world; it is because of all that you have risen in arms. And when you rally to France, you rally to the cause of liberty, of right, of democracy.

Come, then. We will bear away from your land the memory of these meetings of free citizens, and when we return to our country, when the free citizens of republican France ask us what we have seen, we will answer: We have seen crowds tumultuous in their joy, enthusiastic crowds, but they came not forth to see alone, to gaze on passing men: they came as to some great duty, to acclaim France through us. We will take back the words of all your orators: we will tell what you think, what you desire, what you