Some months ago you cabled to me that the United States would send ever-increasing forces, until the day should be reached on which the Allied armies were able to submerge the enemy under an overwhelming flow of new divisions; and, in effect, for more than a year a steady stream of youth and energy has been poured out upon the shores of France. No sooner had they landed than your gallant battalions, fired by their chief, General Pershing, flung themselves into the combat with such a manly contempt of danger, such a smiling disregard of death, that our longer experience of this terrible war often moved us to counsel prudence. They brought with them, in arriving here, the enthusiasm of Crusaders leaving for the Holy Land. It is their right today to look with pride upon the work accomplished and to rest assured that they have powerfully aided by their courage and their faith. Eager as they were to meet the enemy, they did not know when they arrived the enormity of his crimes. That they might know how the German armies make war it has been necessary that they see towns systematically burned down, mines flooded, factories reduced to ashes, orchards devastated, cathedrals shelled and fired--all that deliberate savagery, aimed to destroy national wealth, nature, and beauty, which the imagination could not conceive at a distance from the men and things that have endured it and today bear witness to it. In your turn, Mr. President, you will be able to measure with your own eyes the extent of these disasters, and the French Government will make known to you the authentic documents in which the German General Staff developed with astounding cynicism its program of pillage and industrial annihilation. Your noble conscience will pronounce a verdict on these facts. Should this guilt remain unpunished, could it be renewed, the most splendid victories would be in vain. Mr. President, France has struggled, has endured, and has suffered during four long years; she has bled at every vein; she has lost the best of her children; she mourns for her youths. She yearns now, even as you do, for a peace of justice and security. It was not that she might be exposed once again to aggression that she submitted to such sacrifices. Nor was it in order that criminals should go unpunished, that they might lift their heads again to make ready for new crimes, that, under your strong leadership, America armed herself and crossed the ocean. Faithful to the memory of Lafayette and Rochambeau, she came to the aid of France, because France herself was faithful to her traditions. Our common ideal has triumphed. Together we have defended the vital principles of free nations. Now we must build together such a peace as will forbid the deliberate and hypocritical renewing of an organism aiming at conquest and oppression.