"As to the boys you are sending over there, do not worry. Of course, they are going to suffer. Of course, some of them will die, but believe a soldier, it is sweet to suffer and it is easy to die when you suffer and die for a great cause. And if it be sweet to suffer and easy to die for the French flag, how much sweeter and easier it must be to suffer and die for your flag, the fairest of all the flags of all the nations. Do not worry about the reception your boys are getting yonder. I saw the first American boys arriving in Paris, and the reception extended to them was such as to make all the French mothers jealous, for we, the boys of France, have never been thus received in our own capital city.

"As to the boys who are going there to stay, for some will stay, please take this message home with you and give it to anybody within your reach: The number of American boys who are going there to sleep for ever will depend upon your loyalty and your support. To the mothers of those boys I wish you would say what I went the other day and said to the mother of the first American boy to fall on the fields of France when I brought her some flowers in the name of the French Army. Tell them that the mothers of France, with empty hearts now, will take their places by the graves of their children. I know that the little boys and the little girls of France will go and gather the fairest flowers of our land to place on these graves with their best prayer. And if you ever go to France after the war, you will see that France lovingly guards your sleeping boys. You will not be able to tell which is the grave of an American boy or of a French boy, for they will all be taken care of with the same love and the same gratitude."

This was the best speech I heard during the war except the President's War Address; and the little story about the "voices" was the prettiest story.

Several incidents happened on the trip which I cannot pass over. When we were travelling from Houston to Shreveport over the Houston, East and West Texas Railroad, through a section somewhat out of the beaten track, noticing that at the stations there were usually pretty fair size crowds, I said to Périgord: "These people probably have never seen a French uniform. Let's go out and let them have a look at one." He cheerfully acquiesced in my suggestion. At the next stop, we got out. The crowd showed much interest and gathered about the lieutenant. Looking around, I saw a man well past middle age. I suggested to the lieutenant that we go over and speak to him. We did so. The man did not seem to be especially cordial. In fact, he appeared to be embarrassed. After a few seconds, somebody touched me on the arm and motioned me aside. He said: "I am an officer of the Department of Justice. That man you are talking to is under a $10,000 bond for obstructing the draft. He is a violent pro-German." I thanked him, called Périgord aside and repeated what the officer had told me. He smiled and said: "Oh, well, who knows? We may have made a Christian out of him."

At Shreveport, as usual, Périgord told his little story about the French boy and his godmother, Miss McFadden, whom he charged Périgord to locate when he reached New York and to give his love and to kiss for him, if he found her. After the meeting, two very pretty girls dressed in their Red Cross uniforms, who had been sitting in a box with six or eight of their fellow workers, came on to the

stage locked arm in arm and, approaching Périgord, saluted him as he looked at them, and said with a jaunty and daring air: "Lieutenant, we are Miss McFadden." Périgord was equal to the occasion. He paid them a fine compliment in the best French manner and said: “Oh! But I am only the Secretary's orderly. The honours must go to him."

At Jackson, Mississippi, much to my surprise, I found in the afternoon papers an attack on France, in which the French people were represented as being faithless and irreligious. I showed it to Périgord just before we went to our meeting. He looked grieved, but said nothing. During his speech which followed, without breaking the thread of his thought and without specific reference to the article, he told the story of his brigade at the siege of Verdun. When he finished, his audience was in tears.

On our way from Jacksonville to Columbia, the news reached us that the great German drive had broken the Fifth British Army. I was much worried, because I had been told repeatedly and had come to believe that, while the Allies might not break through the German line, there was no danger of the Germans making a dent in the Allied line. I felt that I should have very little heart in my appearance before the Columbia people that evening. I spoke to Périgord about the matter. He was serious but superbly confident. He said: "Don't you worry, my friend. They will not win. The brave American and English and French boys will beat them back. It may be the beginning of the end for the Germans."

CHAPTER XVIII

THE PRESIDENT'S PROPAGANDA

His Attack on German Morale-Undermining Confidence in the German Government-Cabinet Discussions of Foreign Policy -The Armistice

G

ENERALLY speaking, after we entered the war, there were few new matters of broad policy which had to be discussed in Cabinet meeting till the fall of 1918. Action was what was demanded, and action was the order of the day, rapid action, and everybody was working at top speed. Every department and every agency had its hands full trying to furnish the necessary support and supplies to the army and navy and to get men to France. There was endless consideration by every agency and department of measures which would further the military activities of the nation. It would be hopeless even to attempt to give a hint of what was thought and done.

In the meantime, the President was giving much attention to the psychology of the situation, to the possibility of influencing the minds of the people of the Central Empires and of causing a weakening of their will to continue fighting, by picturing the aims of their rulers and masters and contrasting those of this nation. The power which had brought war and destruction to the world was not, he assumed, the German people, but the ruthless masters of that people. There could be no peace with an

ambitious and intriguing government. We could not take the word of the present rulers of the German people as a guarantee of anything that is to endure, "unless explicitly supported by such conclusive evidence of the will and purpose of the German people themselves as other peoples of the world would be justified in accepting. We must await some new evidence of the purposes of the great peoples of the Central Powers. We are not the enemies of the peoples of the Central Powers—they are not our enemies. They did not originate this war. We are vaguely conscious that we are fighting their cause as some day they will be. They are in the grip of a sinister power. The whole world is in the grip of that power. The military masters of Germany have never regarded nations as peoples-men, women, and children of like blood and frame as themselves, for whom governments exist and in whom governments have their life. But now those masters see very clearly to what point fate has brought them. If they fall back, their power will fall to pieces like a pack of cards. It is their power at home they are thinking about more than their power abroad. It is that power which is trembling. Deep fear has entered their hearts. If they fail, their people will thrust them aside. A government accountable to the people will be set up. If they succeed, they are safe, and Germany and the world are undone. America will fall within their menace. But they will make no headway. It rests with us to break through their hypocrisies. We have only one choice. We have made it. Woe be to the man or group of men that seeks to stand in our way in this day of high resolution when every principle we hold dearest is to be vindicated and made secure for the salvation of nations, including Germany herself.