Lest We Forget: World War Stories

by John G. Thompson; Inez Bigwood

In 1776, the declaration was supported by a small army of a few small colonies, in 1918 the declaration was supported by the full strength of the greatest and wealthiest nation on the globe.

It was a beautiful day with a cloudless sky and a cooling breeze. President Wilson and his party, including members of the cabinet; the British ambassador, the Earl of Reading; the French ambassador, Jules J. Jusserand; and other members of the diplomatic corps, had come down the Potomac from Washington on the President's steam yacht, the Mayflower.

When they had gathered around the tomb of Washington near his old home, Mount Vernon, on the banks of the beautiful Potomac River, representatives of thirty-three nations placed wreaths of palms on the tomb to show their fealty to the principles for which the "Father of His Country" fought; then all stood with bared heads while John McCormack sang "The Star-Spangled Banner." As the beautiful notes rose and swelled and echoed over the hallowed ground, into the hearts of all present came the conviction that the starry flag would soon bring to all the peoples of the world the peace and security that surrounded that historic group at Mount Vernon.

Then the President with the marines about him, and beyond them thousands of American citizens, began to read the Declaration of the Independence of the World. It is so simple in language that even children of twelve years of age may understand nearly all of it, and it is so deep and noble in thought that even the greatest scholars and statesmen will find it worthy of close study. It will stand forever with Washington's Farewell Address and Lincoln's Gettysburg Speech as a great American document. It is as follows, except that the four ends for which the world is fighting are restated in briefer form:

Gentlemen of the Diplomatic Corps and my Fellow-Citizens:

I am happy to draw apart with you to this quiet place of old counsel in order to speak a little of the meaning of this day of our nation's independence. The place seems very still and remote. It is as serene and untouched by hurry of the world as it was in those great days long ago, when General Washington was here and held leisurely conference with the men who were to be associated with him in the creation of a nation.

From these gentle slopes, they looked out upon the world and saw it whole, saw it with the light of the future upon it, saw it with modern eyes that turned away from a past which men of liberated spirits could no longer endure. It is for that reason that we cannot feel, even here, in the immediate presence of this sacred tomb, that this is a place of death. It was a place of achievement.

A great promise that was meant for all mankind was here given plan and reality. The associations by which we are here surrounded are the inspiriting associations of that noble death which is only a glorious consummation. From this green hillside we also ought to be able to see with comprehending eyes the world that lies around us and conceive anew the purpose that must set men free.

It is significant—significant of their own character and purpose and of the influences they were setting afoot—that Washington and his associates, like the barons at Runnymede, spoke and acted, not for a class but for a people. It has been left for us to see to it that it shall be understood that they spoke and acted, not for a single people only, but for all mankind. They were thinking not of themselves and of the material interests which centered in the little groups of landholders and merchants and men of affairs with whom they were accustomed to act, in Virginia and the colonies to the north and south of here, but of a people which wished to be done with classes and special interests and the authority of men whom they had not themselves chosen to rule over them.

They entertained no private purpose, desired no peculiar privilege. They were consciously planning that men of every class should be free and America a place to which men out of every nation might resort who wished to share with them the rights and privileges of freemen. And we take our cue from them—do we not? We intend what they intended.