After an excellent dinner, which began with "Tortue clair" and went on by easy stages from "Langouste muscovite" and an excellent "Baron de Pauillac" to the "Parfait glace Palais d'Orsay", and dessert, Judge Walter V. R. Berry, Vice-president of the Chamber of Commerce in Paris, and acting as chairman in the absence of the president, Mr. Percy Peixotto, addressed the company, as follows:
We have all heard so often about the caravels of Columbus and about the Mayflower that, perhaps a hundred years from now, in a brand-new Palais d'Orsay Hotel, an eloquent member of the Chamber of Commerce will refer to nineteen hundred and sixteen as the year in which the good ship Lafayette brought over for the first time a great American Industrial Commission to explore Darkest France.
Anyone who views with a philosophic mind the tremendous cataclysm that is convulsing the world must reach this conclusion: that its results will be more profound, more far-reaching, more epoch-making than were the results of the Revolution of 1789.
Where, under the new conditions, will the United States find itself?
It is a difficult problem to solve; but if one cannot answer, it will be at least a step forward to put the right questions. Gentlemen of the Commission, it is for you, on your return to America, to formulate these questions.
Heretofore it has been impossible to get together in Europe a delegation of Americans, each one of whom was ready to sink his private interests. This is the first time that an American Commission has come abroad, forgetting the individual, looking only to the welfare of the State.
Gentlemen, I congratulate you on your public spirit and your patriotism. I congratulate you, too, on your opportunity, the magnificent opportunity of bringing home to the American people the urgent necessities that confront them.
After the sustained applause had subsided Mr. W. W. Nichols gave a brief account of the objects for which the American Industrial Commission came to France. He referred to the impetus which had been given to the whole idea by M. Damour, the French deputy and leader of the French Commission which recently visited the United States, and declared that the representatives of French and American manufacturers and industries might help mutually in solving the industrial problem which affected the sister republics. "Our aim," said Mr. Nichols, "is reciprocity in personal conduct and co-operation which will lead to the solution of many minor difficulties. Our possibilities are enormous."
Mr. Nichols concluded with an expression of thanks for the welcome which the Commission had received in France and an acknowledgment of the services which the American Chamber had rendered both to France and to the United States.
On Tuesday we visited the school for maimed soldiers in Paris. At this place the men who are unable to return to the front are taught all kinds of trades—barbering, soap-making, shoe making, etc.