BANQUET. 273 



Germany was ever denied the "freedom of the seas" anywhere in peace? But when war 

 comes, who can deny tlie absolute "freedom of the seas" to the Navy which is standing out 

 in the open of the seas ; who blocks the ports of his enemy and puts his thumb on the jugular 

 vein of his enemy's supplies ; that from the time Gideon Wells and Abraham Lincoln saved 

 •democracy by a blockade on this side of the Atlantic, and Jellico and Beatty saved democ- 

 racy on the other side, that America and Britain alike were not availing themselves of the 

 true "freedom of the seas?" That is what the "freedom of the seas" is in war and in peace, 

 but it does not consist in using tlie paths under the seas in the way that Germany has con- 

 strued the "freedom of the seas" against us, as a neutral country, before we entered into this 

 war. And what the American Navy has done, and what the British Navy for three long years 

 has done for us, was to settle once and for all time that the "freedom of the seas" is not the 

 submarine murder of German "kultur" — of German definition. 



My friends, the American Army needs no one to speak for it to-night. It has spoken 

 for itself, and actions are more eloquent than speech. No one ever doubted what the Ameri- 

 can Army would do when it reached the other side. It came, and it came at a time when it 

 was sorely needed, and no more just estimate was ever made of it than that spoken by a 

 Frenchman to an American friend of mine in France, when he said : "The American soldier 

 combines the dash of the French Poilu and the bulldog of the British Tommy." Yes, gentle- 

 men, the union of the French Poilu, the British Tommy, the American Doughboy — ^the union 

 of the Tricolor that, mark you, has only the red, the white and the blue in it — the tmion of 

 the British flag with its three crosses and its three colors of red, and white, and blue — and 

 when we take these men and these colors and j oin them under that three-colored banner up 

 yonder and put that banner in a khaki suit and over a heart that has the dash of France and 

 the "back against the wall spirit" of Britain, then, gentlemen, you have that for which I 

 speak to-night, THE AMERICAN ARMY; and these three have already,, without any 

 signed papers, without any definitions, formed a league of nations that, whatever may be 

 done later, constitutes the league of nations which will stand for all time, for the "freedom 

 O'f the seas," for the freedom of men, for the freedom of democracy. I want to say also 

 that the men in khaki from this side of the water and the army mule would not have reached 

 the other side had they not ridden on the navy goat to get across the waters. I lay my 

 tribute at the feet, sir, of the men whom you, Mr. Secretary Daniels, represent, and there is 

 nothing that the American people and the world are more justly proud of than the quiet, 

 efficient, unadvertised, night-and-day service of the destroyers and warships that guarded 

 these convoys as they took our boys to the other side, virtually without the loss of a man. 

 The safety of the Army overseas is a great tribute to the American Navy and it is only to be 

 equalled by the great tribute we owe forever and a day to that other great bulwark that dur- 

 ing four years has been defending us, which Admiral Capps told me three years ago we could 

 absolutely depend on, and that is the bulldogs of the British navy. 



My friends, we are standing to-day in a position which makes many of us feel anxious 

 as we look on the days ahead, the settlement of the great problems, the demobilization of 



