I greet you not only with deep personal respect, but as the representative of the great people of France, and beg to bring you the greetings of another great people to whom the fortunes of France are of profound and lasting interest.
This meeting of the American and the French presidents at a banquet in the French capital is a remarkable incident in the history of the world. The statement of the likelihood of such a meeting would have been ridiculed before the war.
[Illustration: President Wilson driving from the railroad station in Paris with President Poincaré of France to the home of Prince Murat, a descendant of Marshal Murat, Napoleon's great cavalry leader.]
As we read the speeches, however, and grasp their full meaning, we understand that the most remarkable fact about the historic meeting is that the leaders of two great republics met with minds and hearts set upon justice. They were determined that the weak who had suffered unimaginable wrong should not fail to secure justice because they were weak and they were equally of a mind that the high and mighty who were responsible for these wrongs should not escape justice because they were high and mighty.
Many times in the history of the world, meetings of the great have been remembered because of the show of Might, on every hand. The meeting of President Wilson and President Poincaré in Paris on December 14, 1918, will never be forgotten because it was the greatest demonstration the world has ever seen of the power of Right.
Truth forever on the scaffold,
Wrong forever on the throne,—
Yet that scaffold sways the future,
And, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow,
Keeping watch above His own.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.