Defenders of Democracy: Contributions from representative men and women of letters and other arts from our allies and our own country, edited by the Gift book committee of the Militia of MercyMilitia of Mercy (U.S.). Gift Book Committee
History
Defenders of Democracy: Contributions from representative men and women of letters and other arts from our allies and our own country, edited by the Gift book committee of the Militia of Mercy
Militia of Mercy (U.S.). Gift Book Committee
Gift books; World War, 1914-1918; World War, 1914-1918 -- Gift books
In France the traveler passing along the roads to the northeast
leading to Lorraine may see at every cross-road a great index
finger pointing to the single word VERDUN. To many thousands,
nay, hundreds of thousands of men passing over these roads in the
five fateful months of critical battle, these six letters spelled
mutilation and death, yet the word was an inspiration to heroism
in every home of France, and from every corner of the land men
followed that great index finger pointing, as it did indeed, to
the modern Calvary.
To-day at every cross-road must we here in America set up a great
index hand with the words "TO FRANCE." To France, land of suffering
humanity, in whose devastated fields again must be saved the same
principles for which Americans fought at Bunker Hill, at Saratoga,
at Yorktown, at Gettysburg and in the Wilderness; to France, where
the fate of the world is still pending; to France, which has again
checked the Huns of the modern world as it did those of the ancient;
to France, the manhood of this nation must now be directed, to
save the heritage of the American Revolution and the Civil War, to
preserve the dearest conquests of the Christian civilization; to
France will our men go by the thousands, hundreds of thousands, if
need be by the million, to prove that the soul of America is more
completely intent upon battling for the right than ever before,
intent that slavery in another but far subtler and more dangerous
form may not prevail upon the earth.
It was Washington who gave as the watchword of the day in those
soul-trying hours that preceded the birth of our nation the immortal
and prophetic phrase, "America and France--United Forever."
[signed]Frederick Coudert THE END.
Ce Que Disent Nos Morts
Il n'est pas besoin de rappeler le souvenir de ceux qui nous furent
chers et ne sont plus, à notre peuple qui passe, non sans raison,
pour célébrer avec ferveur le culte des morts. N'est-ce pas
en France, au dix-neuvième siècle, qu'est née cette philosophie
qui met au rang des premiers devoirs de l'homme la reconnaissance
envers les générations qui nous ont précédés dans la tombe, en nous
laissant le fruit de leurs pensées et de leurs travaux? Certes la
religion des ancêtres est de tous les temps et de tous les climats;
elle est même chez certains peuples orientaux la religion unique;
mais en quel pas les liens entre les morts et les vivants sont-ils
plus forts qu'en France, les deuils plus solennels à la fois et plus
intimes? Chez nous, d'ordinaire, les defunts aimés et vénérés ne
quittent pas tout entiers le foyer où ils vécu; ils y respirent
dans le coeur de ceux qui demeurent; ils y sont imités, consultés,
écoutés.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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