And in the trenches, at the foot of the majestic Alps, there, where the struggle is bitterest and where death is ever present, a thrill of joy and of hope will be felt-the joy of a sincere union, the hope of certain victory.

GREETINGS FROM BELGIUM

Baron Ludovic Moncheur,

Former Belgian Minister to the United States, Head of the Belgian Mission to the United States

Delivered before the Senate of the United States,

June 22nd, 1917

LUDOVIC MONCHEUR

You all know the unspeakable evils which have befallen my unfortunate country-the unprovoked invasion, accompanied by a deliberate system of terror, the burning of many of our thriving cities, and of innumerable villages, the massacre of thousands of our peaceful citizens, the pillage and devastation of our country.

Then followed the iron hand of foreign domination, enormous war contributions exacted from all the nine provinces of Belgium, ruinous requisitions of all sorts from our people, the seizure of the raw material of industry, and even the theft of our machinery which was sent into the country of our enemy for his own use, so that now the silence of death reigns in our industrial centers which before had been the most active in Europe.

You also know, gentlemen, the way in which this regime of oppression has been carried out— eighty thousand Belgians condemned in the space of one year to various penalties for having displeased the invader, as, for example, the noble Burgomaster of Brussels, who has been in imprisonment for the past two years for trying to uphold the principle of civic liberty which for centuries has been so ideal to all Belgians.