NINETEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK—PART HI 187 



at Valley Forge under Washington. He said he could not, but they in- 

 duced him to come, and he arrived at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and 

 offered his services to the Congress and to General Washington, which 

 were joyfully accepted. He joined the army at Valley Forge, was ap- 

 pointed inspectoi'-general, prepared a manual of tactics for the army, 

 remodeled its organization, organized an efficient staff, and improved its 

 discipline. 



With von Steuben came another young man, a French lieutenant, who 

 stated when he left his native land for America that he would kiss the 

 first American woman that he saw on this side of the water. When he 

 came off the boat he saw there a beautiful American girl, and he said, 

 "Miss, I am come to serve under the American flag, and I have made a 

 vow that I shall ask the first American girl to kiss me", and to her eternal 

 credit it may be said that she yielded. 



But old von Steuben came over and after looking over the American 

 soldiers he saw that there was good timber in them, so he taught them 

 how to stand, how to turn, how to advance, how to retreat, how to care 

 for themselves, and he fought with the American soldiers at Yorktown, 

 and Congress gave him a sword in recognition of his services. And old 

 von Steuben rests tonight at Steubenville, New York. Tonight von 

 Steuben's country is advancing on her way to self-government; and so I 

 think that old von Steuben would have turned over in his grave could "he 

 have beheld what his country is doing today — ^banishing its kaiser and 

 feeling its way to a free life. 



Again, Louis XIV huilt a palace at Versailles in 1668, putting $100,000- 

 000 into the great palace itself, and when he was informed that the peo- 

 ple were complaining of his wastefulness he stood in the palace and 

 said "The state! I am the state!" There the absolutism of autocracy 

 spoke at Versailles. But time went on and the great dial of time turned 

 and there came around another hundred years, for in 1783 American and 

 British statesmen met there to fix the terms of the Britishh surrender 

 which resulted in the establishment of an independent government fol- 

 lowing the Revolutionary War. There spoke democracy at Versailles. 

 Another hundred years went by again, and in 1871 the German was in 

 possession of Versailles, his spiked helmet everywhere representing the 

 spirit of the conqueror, for it was at Versailles that the German fixed the 

 capitulation of Paris, took Alsace-Lorraine from France, and there the 

 German Empire was proclaimed and Frederick declared kaiser, and Moltke 

 and the little kings and kinglets declared that their "tag" had arrived 

 when they would make a great German nation. There spoke again from 

 Versailles the voice of autocracy. 



But forty-seven years have gone by. and you and I are living in a 

 time when another armistice meeting has been held at Versailles, and 

 that meeting is a meeting of the representatives of a free world. The 

 first thing the armistice provided for was the cessation of hostilities. The 

 second thing is this, that the enemy shall vacate all invaded territory, 

 namely, France, Belgium. Luxemherg, and Alsace-Loraine, and there in 

 that voice spoke again, and. spoke finally, I believe, the voice of dem- 

 ocracy from Versailles. 



