The conferees of Paris have formulated a measure for this purpose. It is not perfect. Experience may develop even greater imperfections than study has revealed. But it contains much of hope and promise. It is practical; it is subject to amendment. It commits no one irrevocably to its provisions. It is instinct with American idealism. It is in accord with the best American traditions. Washington, Lincoln, McKinley, and Roosevelt—each has contributed to the establishment of some of its main provisions. No partisan, no provincial prejudice should be permitted to influence or control the judgment of our people concerning it.
When Peace Came to Verdun
It was 10:45 on the morning of November 11th in Verdun. The Germans had thrown a barrage over the little French city, now immortal; and shells were falling, plowing up the earth that had been turned over and over, ground to powder by four years of artillery fire. Would the Germans stop at 11 o'clock? Reason said "yes." Everyone in Verdun knew that at that hour the armistice would go into effect.
It was 10:50. The guns continued bellowing. A feeling deeper than reason came over those in the city that the Germans would not stop. Verdun had lived through four years of fire, smoke, thunder, blood, and ruin. Sometimes for days there would be a lull, but the guns were never quiet long. The Germans never forgave the "they-shall-not-pass" spirit that had hurled them back just as the prize—this military key to the West front—seemed within their grasp.
It was 10:55. Men were crouching between buildings. They kept coming—doughboys, Morrocans, English soldiers, more doughboys. Even the general and his aids began to look anxious.
"Then," says B. C. Edworthy in Association Men, "as suddenly as though God himself had dropped a wet blanket over the crackling flames of hell and at one blow had extinguished them all, the firing ceased. There was an instant's pause, in which it seemed as though the world had come to an end. Then from the forty bells, high in the still untouched towers of that old cathedral at Verdun, which had witnessed the most heroic sacrifice of life and love save that on Calvary alone, pealed forth as did the voices over the Bethlehem hills those silver tones that once again were saying, 'Peace on Earth.' The men were joyously and deliriously leaping about, yelling and shouting and singing and kissing one another. Slowly those heavy cathedral doors opened and in rushed about six hundred of the Allied soldiers."
There were Mohammedans, Catholics, Jews, and Protestants. They pressed forward into the choir space, the roofs above them open to heaven. A simple impromptu service of thanksgiving followed. An English soldier led the Doxology, and all who knew the hymn joined in. Six hundred worshipers knelt, each soldier praying according to his faith. Mohammedans bowed to the stones, Catholics crossed themselves, Jews and Protestants with moving lips bent their heads or lifted their faces to heaven. Dr. Oscar E. Maurer, of New Haven, Conn., led the Lord's Prayer. As the strange congregation rose, the Americans began "My Country 'tis of Thee," the English joining in with "God Save the King."
There could be only one closing hymn in that battered shell of Verdun Cathedral. Now, as though it had been arranged, the French pushed forward and began the "Marseillaise." It was the singing of the soul of a nation, a soul redeemed:
Allons, enfants de la patrie
Le jour de gloire est arrivé