.M6 F7 Copy 1 ) Doeunient No. 286 VASES PRESENTED BY THE REPUBLIC OF FRANCE PROCEEDINGS IN THE SENATE O'F THE UNITED STATES UPON THE OCCASION OF THE PRESENTATION BY AMBASSADOR JUSSERAND, ON BEHALF OF THE REPUBLIC OF FRANCE, OF TWO VASES FROM THE NATIONAL MANUFACTURE OF SEVRES SEPTEMBER 24, 1918 WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1918 U S>. VjONXQveJ^S. . ^e.>LA-A\ 6Sth Consr^in. 2d Sc-»l Senate Document No. 286 VASES PRESENTED BY THE REPUBLIC OF FRANCE PROCEEDINGS IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES UPON THE OCCASION OF THE PRESENTATION BY AMBASSADOR JUSSERAND, ON BEHALF OF THE REPUBLIC OF FRANCE, OF T^VO VASES FROM THE NATIONAL MANUFACTURE OF SEVRES SEPTEMBER 24. 1918 WASHINGTON- GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1918 ^^q. ^^ _K^ SENATE RESOLUTION NO. 311. Reported by Mr. Smith of Arizona. In the Senate of the United St.^tes, September 50, JQ18. Resolved, That the proceedings in the Senate upon the acceptance of the vases presented by the French Government be printed as a Senate document, with illustrations. Attest: n, •!' .*. fEB 2iJ9l9 VASES PRESENTED BY THE REPUBLIC OF FRANCE. WEDNESDAY. SEPTEMBER 11, 1918. The Vice President. The Chair lays before the Senate a coni- iminication from the President of the United States, together with a letter from the ambassador from France to the United States, which will be read. The Secretary read as follows: To the Senate and House of Representatives: In compliance with the request of the French Ambassador, I transmit herewith, for the information of the Congress, a letter from the ambassador expressing the desire of his Government to offer to each of the two Houses of Congress a vase from the National Manufacture of Sfevres. WooDROW Wilson. The White House, September 11, 191S. Ambassade da la RfepuBLiQUE Fran^aise aux Etats-Unis, Washington, le 9 septembre 1918. Dear Mr. President: Anxious to show their profound appreciation of the way in which Congress received the Viviani-JofFre mission when it came to express France's sisterly gratitude for America's timely help, my Government is desirous, if so allowed, to offer to each of the two Houses a vase from our National Manu- facture of Sfevres. Our hope is that those products of French craftsmanship may be kindly accepted and preserved as a token of what France feels toward the representatives of the American States and citizens, whose manly resolutions, suggested by yourself, each of them meeting the country's warmest approval, will have had such a decisive influence on the severest conflict, and the greatest by its consequences, the world has ever known. I should be very much obliged to you if you were so good as to inform the Senate and House of the Representatives of the intention of the Government of the French Republic and of its motives. I have the honor to be, dear Mr. President, Very respectfully and sincerely, yours, JUSSERAND. The Vice President. The message and accompanying letter will be referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations and printed. (3) TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1918. Mr. PoMERENE. Mr. President, from the Committee on Foreign Relations I present a resolution under its instructions, and I ask unanimous consent for its present consideration. The Vice President. The Senator from Ohio, from the Com- mittee on Foreign Relations, presents a resolution, which the Secretary will read. The Secretary read the resolution (S. Res. 305), as follows: Resolved, That the Senate of the United States has received with deep satisfaction the communication of the ambassador of the French Republic to the United States conveying the desire of the French Government to present to the Senate a vase from the National Manufacture of Sevres. Resolved, That this oifer is accepted with the highest appreciation of the gift and of the spirit in which it is presented, and that the 24th day of September, 1918, at the hour of 1 o'clock p. m., is hereby set apart for the purpose of formally and officially accepting such gift. Resolved, That the French ambassador be notified of this action of the Senate and requested to attend as the representative of his Government. The Vice President. Is there objection to the present con- sideration of the resolution? The resolution was considered by unanimous consent and unanimously agreed to. TUESDAY. SEPTEMBER 24, 1918. Mr. Martin, of Virginia. Mr. President, as arrangements have been made for the ceremonies at i o'clock in connection with the presentation of the vases by the French Republic, I am going to move for a recess; but I will state the reason for the roll call. I think this is a national occasion, and it is very important that there should be as many Senators as possible present in recognition of this international event. As we shall take a recess for that purpose, and I know of no pressing business, I move that the Senate recess until I2 o'clock meridian on Thursday next. The motion was agreed to. The Vice President. The hour of i o'clock having arrived, the Chair will request Mr. Martin, of Virginia, Mr. Lodge, Mr. Williams, Mr. Brandegee, Mr. Pomerene, and Mr. McCumber to repair to the Vice President's room and escort the French ambas- sador to the Chamber. The French ambassador, M. Jusserand, preceded by the Sei- geant at Arms and the Secretary of the Senate, was escorted to the Chamber by the committee named by the Vice President, and he was seated on the right of the Vice President. The Vice President. The Secretary will read the Senate reso- lution heretofore adopted. The Secretary read Senate resolution 305, submitted by Mr. Pomerene on the 17th instant and agreed to by the Senate on that day, as follows: Resolved, That the Senate of the United States has received with deep satisfaaion the communication of the ambassador of the French Republic to the United States conveying the desire of the French Government to present to the Senate two vases from the National Manufacture of Sevres. Resolved, That this ofFer is accepted with the highest appreciation of the gift and of the spirit in which it is presented, and that the 24th day of September, 1918, at the hour of i o'clock post meridian, is hereby set apart for the purpose of formally and officially accepting such gift. Resolved, That the French ambassador be notified of this action of the Senate and requested to attend as the representative of his Government. The Vice President. Gentlemen of the Senate, the ambassador of the French Republic to the United States. [Great applause.] (5) ADDRESS BY M. JULES J. JUSSERAND, Ambassador of the French Republic to the United States. M. JussERAND. Mr. President and gentlemen of the Senate, as a token of gratitude for the reception granted by this assembly to a few representative Frenchmen sent last year in order to wel- come America to the ranks of the active defenders of right, these vases are offered to the Senate. Commemorating a modern event, they are themselves modern and come from that Sfevres manu- facture, near Paris, where mementos of America abound, recalling the perpetual friendship between our two countries, busts of Wash- ington, Franklin, Jefferson, Lincoln, Lafayette. [Applause.] The decision of the President and of Congress to take part in the war had sent a thrill of joy throughout France, not simply because of the aid but because of the justification. Our faith that our living and our dead had made their manifold sacrifices for a supremely great and just cause received its most telling con- firmation when, from across the ocean, the voice of this great Nation was heard above the din of battle, saying, from now on "until the last gun is fired," until right triumphs not for a time but for all times, we take our place by your side. [Applause.] Our great thinker, Pascal, once drew up this aphorism: "Justice without force is powerless; force without justice is tyrannical." We wanted the mission sent to you last year to represent both; and it was led, therefore, by Mr. Viviani, minister of justice, whose winged, fiery words are still remembered on these shores, and by one who, at a solemn hour in the history of the world, personated what President Wilson has described in one of his memorable addresses as "Force; force to the utmost, force without stint or limit, the righteous and triumphant force which shall make right the law of the world," Marshal Joffre, the winner of the Marne. Of the two ways of expressing one's self, that of Marshal Joffre, of Marshal Foch, who started from the same Marne a pursuit that (7) Vases Presented by the Republic of France is not near its end, of Marshal Haig and his admirable Britishers, of Gen. Pershing, who has given back to France a portion of France, and of their companions in arms in Belgium, Italy, Pales- tine, the Balkans, Siberia, is the only one our enemy understands — he has never tired of saying so himself — and since we want to be understood we mean to use no other. [Applause.] We have to deal with a strange enemy; I shall not say a mon- strous enemy, though in fact such he is. [Laughter and applause.] He can devise, he can not understand. He can devise liquid fire, poisonous gases, poisonous propa- ganda, noxious germs to be sent by his diplomatic pouch to neutral countries, as happened in Norway and Roumania — after which he wonders that he has no friends — an accurate shelling of Rheims, burning of Louvain, sinking of the Lusitania and of hospital ships, perfectly appointed wagons to carry off loot, the efficient slavery of civilians. He sometimes reproaches us lor not knowing when we are beaten; along this line, let us confess it, we are beaten; along this line, and along no other, Heaven be praised, and never shall be. [.Applause.] He can devise; he can not understand; he has no eyes to see, no heart to feel. He can not pretend that while preparing his onslaught he lacked informers in any country of the world. They were mostly of his own blood, and he concluded from what they told him that when "der Tag" should come Belgium would be found benumbed in fright, France in decay, England in indifference, America in business. The answer was Lifege, Marne, Ypres, St. Mihiel. [Applause.] They forgot in their calculations one imponderable item — sen- timent. They could not understand that sentiment is a force, the greatest of all, in our days; that sentiment leads the world and has caused one nation after another, in Europe, in North, Central, and South America, in Asia, in Africa even, to rise up and sa\', nled by the Republic of Fi "Till the end we are with you." Sentiment is the force behind those particular guns that shall win the day. Of the value of this force we French are better aware than anyone, for it happened to us to sow the seed on these shores long, long ago, without thinking of the future; and behold, like the grain of mustard seed, it has grown and waxed a great tree. [Applause.] They can not understand. Our attitude during the many years between the two German wars was as unprovocative as it well could be, from which they just concluded that we must be in decay. Our policy was publicly expressed and acted upon, but they would not believe and could not understand. In an address of April 13, 1912, one of our statesmen, on an occasion of international sig- nificance, said: France will neither attack nor provoke, but in order to be assured that she herself will be neither attacked nor provoked she must have land and sea forces capable of commanding respect. This Statesman was then prime minister and is now President of the French Republic, M. Raymond Poincare. The doors are shut, the curtains are drawn; with hushed voices select accomplices decide that "der Tag" has come for the greatest crime in the world's history. No outsider can hear or see; no one shall know. Yet all the world knows, for the crime has cried to heaven, and the dark date of the Potsdam council, July 5, 1914, will be execrated throughout ages. Any pretext would be good enough to justify the decision, for the true justification was to be success; and force moreover needs, they think, no justification. For the Serbs the pretext resorted to was the assassination of an Austrian prince by an Austrian subject; for the Belgians, necessity which, as all burglars are aware, "knows no law"; for France, a pipe-dream accusation of our having shelled Nuremberg from the air. Force was so much to be the justification (9) Vases Presented by the Republic of France of it all, and so little care was considered necessary that, in their tragedy, the Germans played the epilogue before the prologue, and one day before they declared war on us because of Nuremberg the}' had begun hostilities. Their declaration is of Monday evening, August 3. On Sunday, the 2d, their horsemen had penetrated more than 7 miles on French territory, killed Corp. Peugeot, head of a small platoon from the Forty-fourth Infantry, a young man of 21, in times of peace a public-school teacher; their own leader, Lieut. Camille Mayer, was killed by us, and his tomb at Joncherey will testify forever as to what the dawn of "der Tag" was Hke. The Kaiser thereupon solemnly declared in Berlin, "The sword has been forced into our hands," and all the echoes in Germany dutifully repeated and continue to repeat, "The sword has been forced into our hands; the sword has been forced into our hands." We knew from that moment what to expect. In the dust and smoke of the immense fight the skies are some- times beclouded and we do not know the time of day, but we feel that we are moving toward the evening of "der Tag" and that evening will see the doom of those men who, even at this late hour, as unable as before to understand, still exercise their faculty of devising, and methodically ravage, defile, and destroy the parts of France which they have to abandon, cunningly arranging bombs with time fuses that may kill people returning to their ruined homes. The hour of their doom is coming. [Applause.] They now pretend their eyes begin to open and they "babble" of peace, the peace of wrong, of course, the only one they can understand, not the peace of right; thev still admire their Treitschke, who said: Small St.ites have no right to exist, for they lack the essential state element^ — force. They have therefore no rights. The four treaties they have signed this spring with Ukraine, Russia, Finland, and Roumania testify to this, being treaties not of peace but of bondage. (10) Vases Presented by the Republic of France The honest nations of the world feel differently. They feel that "the small States of the world have a right to enjoy the same respect for their sovereignty and for their territorial integrity that great, powerful nations expect and insist upon." So spoke Presi- dent Wilson. We feel with him. France has never thought of fighting for her own Alsace-Lorraine only; she fights and will fight to the end for the liberation of all the Alsace-Lorraines still in servitude throughout the world. [Applause.] We are now at one of the grandest periods in the history of the world. We see sights never to be seen again; not only scenes of horror, but scenes of splendor. To those latter scenes American contribution is one of which you and your descendants may well be proud forever. Seeking, to use again the terms of your Presi- dent, no conquest, no dominion, no indemnities, no material com- pensation, acting as "one of the champions of the rights of man- kind," your Nation has stood the severest tests and offered a wonderful example. It is enough to say to her, "It is for justice; it is for liberty; it is in order that suffering people in far-away lands may cease to suffer," and the Nation to a man, to a woman, to a child, answers at once, agreed and content. Not even laws, but recommendations, mere suggestions, are obeyed, for the cause is in their eyes a sacred one, and all that can help it has to them something sacred. Immense loans are oversubscribed; the absten- tion from certain foods, the giving up of certain perfectly honest enjoyments are accepted with alacrity. How could it be otherwise when those men and women offer, without flinching, to the great cause the blood of their blood, the heart of their hearts, their own sons, to fight their battles over there. [Applause.] And is it not a peerless honor for this country, the fact that the laws implying the greatest sacrifice or effort are passed by a unani- mous vote.'' The law, for example, extending the draft age to i8 and to 45. A unanimous vote was recorded the other day in the House for a law increasing taxation by some $4,000,000,000. (n) Vases Presented by the Republic of France What is now the time of day? Is "der Tag" nearly spent? Foch, Haig, Pershing, and their peers will tell us when they think fit. [Applause.] All we need to know is that we are in, all of us, "until the last gun is fired"; and why are we in ? We are in, as I take it, in order to give its proper value to a document about as sacred to us French as to you Americans and which recalls for us common souvenirs. It is to make good for the world the Declaration of Independence. [Applause.] I shall end by a personal word, a word of thanks, and say that I shall ever consider it as one of the greatest honors in a long career to have been privileged to address this august assembly. [Prolonged applause.] HON. THOMAS VICE PRESIDENT OF ADDRESS BY HON. THOMAS R. MARSHALL, Vice President of the United States. The Vice President. Mr. Ambassador, who among the sons of the Republic can distill into the attar of language the love of the American people for France.^ [Applause.] Not I. Who, in a few figures of speech, can compute the debt of gratitude we owe the French people as with accumulated interest it has been trans- mitted from sire to son for sevenscore years .? [Applause.] Not I. Who hopes that, whatever other crime our country may be com- pelled to face at the bar of impartial justice, it may not be ingrati- tude ? All of us. Who hopes that, from "the Tiger" to the loneliest orphan in the stricken homes of France, there is not one who has a dream of the shadow of a doubt that we are with them to the end [applause], with them until the lilies shall bloom on all her soil, with them till justice wipes away all their tears and fears, and avenges, though it can not obliterate, all the scars of all their wrongs ? Every red-blooded American. [Applause.] Dear Mr. Ambassador, beloved of the American people for your own sake as well as for your country's, the ghosts of innocent women, helpless children, and feeble age are calling to God, to America, and to civilization. Rest content. They do not call in vain. [Applause.] I am not striving to weave a beautiful garment. I am only seeking to dress a great truth in the clothing of speech, however tawdry and misfit it may be. That truth is found in a story told of Mahomet. His first wife, Kadijah, was a widow. But she made of the camel driver the founder and head of a great religion. Then she died, and in his old age the prophet married the young, charming, and beautiful Ayesha. Consistently with human nature, she would sit upon Mahomet's knees, pull his gray beard, and petulantly ask, "Am I not a better wife than Kadijah?" Worn out at last, the prophet made answer, "No, by Allah; there can (13) Vases Presented by the Republic of France be none better, for she believed in nie when all men despised me." Since far off 1776 we have grown rich and powerful and many seek our favors and many are our friends, but none can get closer to our hearts than France, for she believed in us when all men despised us. [Applause.] Mr. Ambassador, you know us better than we know ourselves. Yet still I hope your judgment coincides with mine. All the conscious days of my life I have watched the attitude of this people toward war and warriors. It has been an intense hatred of war as an abstract proposition and a flaming, never-dying enthusiasm for it when it had for its concrete objects justice, truth, liberty, and fraternity. [Applause.] It has been a supreme con- tempt for the warrior who has waded through slaughter to a throne, and a never-ending burning of incense before the shrines of those who died for man. That sentiment accounts for our whole-hearted entry into this war. I am just an average American and my thoughts on these great questions, I venture to assert, meet the approval of my fellow countrymen. I never owned or wanted a counterfeit presentment of Napoleon; but I wish I might have seen Charles Martel. I thrill at the seraphic face of the Maid of Orleans. I look with love each day at the photograph of Joseph JofFre. [Applause.] And I hope the good God, ere my race is run, will let me grasp reverently the hand of Ferdinand Foch. He will conquer and survive, for, never fear, Bethlehem must triumph over Berlin. [Applause.] I accept, in the name of the Senate of the United States, this touching and beautiful gift of the French Republic. I bid you convey to your Government our genuine appreciation of this thoughtful and unexpected courtesy. This legislative body had no small part in another far-off and, happily, almost forgotten war, in making a Union of indestructible States. May I express the hope and belief that it will be the purpose and endeavor of this Senate Vases Presented by the Republic of France to maintain an indissoluble friendship with the people of France till the heavens are rolled together as a scroll. [Prolonged ap- plause.] I venture to assume that the Ambassador will be glad to meet the Senators of the United States. M. Jusserand took his place at the left of the Vice President's desk and the Members of the Senate were respectively presented to him by the committee which had been appointed by the Vice President. On the conclusion of the ceremonies (at i o'clock and 30 minutes p. m.), the Vice President, under the previous order, declared the Senate to be in recess until Thursday, September 26, 19 18, at 12 o'clock meridian. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS IHH 020 933 492 6