A man's hand is a very little thing, frail and weak, but we have seen a cloud like a man's hand, a man's hand clad in armor, rising up beyond the sea. The shadow of that cloud fell on Poland, and Poland died. It fell on Russia, and a great Empire went down in darkness and eclipse. It fell on Serbia, and blotted her out, on Roumania, and Roumania passed into bondage. It fell on Belgium, and Belgium cried out a little and then grew still. That shadow fell on France and even the trees withered and died. It stretched out over the sea and touched the Lusitania, and she crumpled and went down, carrying with her 120 American dead. And now that shadow falls upon our own shores and darkens the streets and homes of our towns and cities. So to-day the summons has gone forth to every American, "Prepare thy chariot!" Each one of us has his own--not to all of us is the same kind given. To some of us it is the Red Cross, to others it is the voice or the pen, to every one of us it is the buying of Liberty Bonds, to some of us it is the Training Camp, the Trench, and the Battlefield. But to every man, woman, and child of us the hour has come to "Prepare our chariots." For America has willed with all her might, her soul, her strength, that the shadow of that "Cloud like a man's hand" shall forever pass away; that it shall no longer rest on Poland, Russia, Serbia, Roumania, Belgium, France or on our own America, but that Liberty, Justice, and Democracy shall shine in an unclouded sky and that no shadow of a man's mailed fist shall darken either the homes or the hearts of men. In 1204 Philip Augustus laid siege to the Chateau Gaillard, which Richard Coeur de Lion had built to defend his lands of Normandy. In the course of that siege, the little town of Les Andelys was destroyed, and the peasants, some 1400 in number, fled to the Chateau for refuge. But Sir Roger de Lacy, defending for England, was already facing starvation, England was far away, John Lackland was slow, and provisions were failing. He did not dare admit these 1400 "bouches inutiles," for that would mean the almost immediate surrender of his trust. Therefore he kept the gates of the castle closed. But the besiegers would not allow the refugees to pass through their lines, their Commandant believing that the compassion of the English would sooner or later compel them to receive these fugitives if they saw them starving before their eyes. So they held them between the lines until they starved to death, so the story goes.