Shortly after General Pershing reached France, the French people celebrated the birthday of Lafayette; and General Pershing visited the tomb of the great French patriot, to place there a wreath in token of America's gratitude. A large number of French people were gathered there, and every one supposed General Pershing would make a speech--that is, every one except General Pershing. When he was called upon, he was dumfounded, but at last he said, "Well, Lafayette, we are here." That was all. Could he have said more if he had talked an hour? He said, "Lafayette, your people now need us. We have not forgotten. Here we are, and behind us are all the resources of the wealthiest and most enterprising nation in the world, billions of dollars and millions of men. We are only the first to arrive to pay the debt we have owed to you for one hundred and forty years, but here we are at last." It is said that men and women wept aloud as the full significance of the words and all they meant for France became clear to them. THE MELTING POT America has been called the "crucible" or the "melting pot" of nations, because many peoples of many races and many countries come together here, and in the heat of life and struggle are molded into Americans. President Wilson said, in a speech at Cincinnati in 1916, "America is not made out of a single stock. Here we have a great melting pot." As soon as we entered the war against Germany, the question arose in the minds of most people as to how the large number of Germans in the United States would act. Germany had taught them that even though they became naturalized and took the oath of allegiance as American citizens, such action was not binding, but was like "a scrap of paper" to be destroyed and forgotten whenever necessity demanded, and that "once a German" meant "always a German." It seems now that Germany actually expected the Germans, who had left their native land to seek opportunity, freedom, and citizenship under the Stars and Stripes, to fight against their new and adopted home; but events have proved that most German-Americans have higher ideals of right. A leading German-American has written a book entitled "Right before Peace"; its title carries the thought that has guided most of his fellow-countrymen and their children in the United States during the World War. A few months after the United States had declared that a state of war existed with Germany, many leading men of this country of foreign birth and parentage, signed, with others, a declaration drawn up by Theodore Roosevelt. This declaration, somewhat abbreviated but not altered in thought, is as follows. It makes very clear what America should mean to her adopted children.