280 BANQUET. 



the second division, half soldiers and half marines, at Belleau Wood and Chateau-Thierry 

 that stopped the onward march and drove the Germans back and gained the initiative that 

 ended at 11 o'clock last Monday. (Loud and prolonged applause.) 



It so chanced, gentlemen, not because the marines are any more courageous than the men 

 of the Army — they are all brothers in blood and daring and they were regimented in the 

 same forces— but the impact of the most fearful German "shock" troops was sent against 

 the marines., in the open, and these boys had not been under fire. They were not expecting 

 to go intO' that battle but, when ordered, they stiffened the lines, turning the tide, drove 

 back the Germans, and out of 8,000, 5,200 were killed, wounded or gassed in the open. The 

 best sharpshooters in the world, they took aim and routed the finest body of Prussian sol- 

 diers that ever went against American, or French or allied armies. (Loud applause.) 



I wish I could tell you some of the stories I have heard from the lips oif these boys. 

 A few days ago I was in New York. I went tO' the hospital, where some of these boys 

 are convalescing. The boys from Chateau-Thierry had come home, those who' were wounded, 

 those who had been so severely wounded that they could not return to battle, and I went 

 there and did myself the honor to pay my respects to them and to take my hat off and 

 uncover and thank God that in the Navy we had such boys in this day of need. (Applause.) 

 I talked to a score of them. One of the nurses said to me — a splendid woman whom I 

 have known for a long time — "I want you to come and see my boy ; he is the joy of the hos- 

 pital," and I went in to see him. He had undergone an operation that had given him great 

 anguish (neither the doctors nor the nurses thought he would come through) but there he 

 was in his rolling chair, red-headed and freckled-faced, the handsomest boy my eyes ever 

 rested on. There was a light in his eye, the light akin to the light that never was on sea or 

 land, and a smile on his face that radiated his room in the hospital, was so contagiously 

 cheerful that it reached the other wards, and made men cheerful, thankful and happy. Of 

 all of them there was not a boy who did not hope that he could be patched up so that he 

 might gO' back and finish the job. (Applause.) 



That is the spirit of all these marines, and the spirit of the soldiers, and the spirit of 

 the sailors. This spirit may be illustrated by an incident related by the nurse. I was told 

 that one of the pals of this boy went to see him, and after talking with him, and when about 

 to take his leave, he said, "Too bad, old chap; it is too bad you lost your leg," and this 

 youngster said — ^"Why, I didn't lose my leg" — he was in a rolling chair. Said he, "I didn't 

 lose my leg. I gave it." Gentlemen, when soldiers give their legs and lives with such no- 

 bility and modesty they are invincible and unconquerable. (Loud applause.) 



But I must not detain you with these incidents that thrill and make us proud, all of 

 us, that we have lived in this heroic age. All of us have suffered. Those of us at home 

 who have been on the firing line in sending weapons and ships and everything that con- 

 tributed to war were of their spirit, and during these eighteen months we have constantly 

 planned, worked and saved in order that the heroic courage of these men might be matched 

 by our spirit of initiative and resource, so that we might give them what they needed. 



