Winning a Cause: World War StoriesThompson, John G. (John Gilbert)
History
Winning a Cause: World War Stories
Thompson, John G. (John Gilbert)
Readers -- History; Readers -- World War, 1914-1918
In London, the American flag flew on April 20, 1918, where no flag
except the British flag had flown in all history, at the top of the
Victoria Tower over the Houses of Parliament at Westminster. A solemn
and beautiful service was held at St. Paul's Cathedral. The King and
Queen and England's greatest men and women attended.
These celebrations in Paris and London and elsewhere are of importance
to America, because they proved that the world was beginning to realize
that the people of the United States were more than money seekers
looking only for selfish gain, and therefore weak and unreliable. When
America entered the war, a leading German paper said,
"We do not think that America's intervention will have an essential
effect on the results of the war. The Allies are going to have a
momentary advantage, but they will soon be aware that America is like a
stick that breaks when one wants to lean on it."
Another great German daily gave the following as America's reasons for
joining the Allies:--
"First, the desire to have a place at the peace conference; second, the
wish to weaken or destroy the love of different peoples for their
native lands; third, the hope thereby to be able to increase her
military and naval equipment; and fourth, the desire to build up a
great American merchant fleet."
Because Germany saw in the United States only the love of power and of
the Almighty Dollar, she made the terrible mistake that brought about
her downfall. With the declaration of war with Germany on April 6,
1917, at least England and France saw the people of America more nearly
as they are, lovers and defenders of the highest ideals man has yet
felt and spoken. The American soldiers showed a little later at
Belleau Wood and in the Argonne forest, that they loved these ideals
enough to die for them.
The English writer, Hall Caine, described the celebration in London in
beautiful and graphic language:--
American Day in London was a great and memorable event. It was another
sentinel on the hilltop of time, another beacon fire in the history of
humanity. The two nations of Great Britain and America can never be
divided again. There has been a national marriage between them, which
only one judge can dissolve, and the name of that judge is Death. . . .
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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