Address of Ambassador Jusserand
I have been accredited to the United States almost ten years, and although this beats the record of any of my predecessors, from the founding of this Republic, this space of time, spent in such a friendly country, among a people that has never allowed me to feel that I was not in my own land, has passed for me like a day. What has just been said by our Chairman, an historian, a thinker, a man of action, a scientist who has delighted the French of to-day by his studies of the French of the past, showing to both a similar broad sympathy, touches me deeply. I cannot imagine with the sound of his words in my ears, what amount of time would ever seem long to me, in a post where the President of the French Republic and his representative are spoken of in such a fashion by such a friend.
It was my privilege, three years ago, to attend, in the society of the President of the United States, memorable ceremonies, lasting several days, held by the Sons of America in honor of a son of France, Samuel Champlain. The year was a busy one for President Taft, since it was a tariff year, yet he did not hesitate to lend his presence to festivities for which, in every bay, on every promontory, in every city, his eloquence, good humor and good grace were in ceaseless request. He had been advised that one speech would be expected of him, and I had received the same notification; so we had each prepared one, but he had to deliver six and I five; Ambassador Bryce had a similar fate, such being the way of the world, and especially of the New World.
Many of you, I am sure, remember the grandeur of the ceremonies to which a peerless landscape lent its lovely background, and the summer sun its splendor, and the Champlain Commission the charms of a most gracious hospitality; the visits to Ticonderoga just rising from its ruins, to Bluff Point, Plattsburgh, Burlington; the excellent addresses of President Taft, of Ambassador Bryce, Senator Root, Mr. Lemieux of Canada and so many others, and you remember too with what alacrity New York and Vermont vied with each other, Governor Hughes and Governor Prouty making everybody welcome and delighting innumerable hearers with the wit and wisdom of their speeches.
But this was not enough, and with that warmth of heart so characteristic of this nation, you have desired that permanent memorials should, to the end of time, bear testimony to the gratitude due to Champlain, not only for the discoveries he made, but also for the examples he left us. When this intention became known to my compatriots, it profoundly touched them, and they begged permission to take part in these homages, thus evidencing once more, the unity of feeling between the two Republics east and west of the great Ocean. Hence the coming to these shores of the Delegation headed by Mr. Hanotaux which you are welcoming to-night, a representative one, where the French Academy, the French Parliament, the French Army, French art, science, industry, commerce, press and, let us not forget that Franco-American art, aviation, have their spokesmen.
The news of your intentions moved the more deeply the hearts of my compatriots that, after a long interruption, the task of Champlain, that task so well described by our Chairman of to-night, President Finley, in his Sorbonne lectures, has been resumed in the same spirit by our Republic of to-day.
“The French,” wrote in the sixteenth century the great Italian poet Tasso, “are by nature unable to stand still and do nothing. When they cease to be in action, they wither like the mechanism of a clock that gets rusty if not in use.” We have been in no danger in these latter years, of rusting. If, on several continents, success has attended our efforts, it is because we took our inspiration from the precepts and examples left by the far-off ancestors, Champlain and his peers. Justice, friendliness, a desire to help and improve, must ever be among the chief articles of the colonist’s creed. The one sense to which throughout the world, even the lowest type of humanity responds, is the sense of Justice.
Such was the opinion of your leaders too, of Washington above all others, who wrote to Lafayette: “The basis of our proceedings with the Indian nations has been and shall be Justice.” And, at this day, in the distant Philippine Islands, where schools have so much multiplied and President Taft has left, as a Governor, such noteworthy examples, this rule is known to be your rule.
As for our own men they felt in the same way, that the contact with the white man ought to be a blessing, not a bane, to the less advanced races. Champlain, Joliet, La Salle were of one mind and opposed to the best of their ability the sale of “fire-water” to the natives; and a similar principle continues in force to-day in your Indian reservations. As to the development of the country by slave labor or by that of hired servants, Charlevoix wrote those memorable words: “I should prefer the last. When the time of their service is expired, they become inhabitants and increase the number of the King’s natural subjects, whereas the first are always strangers: and who can be assured that, by continually increasing in our colonies, they will not one day become formidable enemies? Can we depend upon slaves who are only attached to us by fear and for whom the very land where they are born has not the dear name of Mother-country?”
In this, as is so often the case, interest and virtue combine: both give the colonist the same advice; which, as mankind progresses, it will be more and more dangerous to discard. The measure of success we have reached is, I hope, founded on no less stable a basis. What this success has been and whether we are or not worthy compatriots of Champlain, let those determine who have recently visited our colonial empire; and I for one would gladly abide by the judgment of such American travelers as Edgar Allen Forbes, in his Land of the White Helmet.