LUNCHEON HOUR FOR THE NURSES IN THE AMERICAN HOSPITAL AT PARIS 



No American undertaking in France since the beginning of the European war has received 

 or deserved more enthusiastic endorsement than this great institution, which daily is mending 

 the maimed who are rushed here from the trendies in Flanders. 



fundamentally for the care and comfort 

 of soldiers, but we are not fighting this 

 war alone for the direct efficiency of bat- 

 tle. We are fighting here for infinitely 

 greater objectives, and there is no support 

 that can be given to the American ideal, 

 to the American objective of this war. 

 better and greater than a proper organi- 

 zation of that side of our civilization 

 which we believe is today imperiled. 



\\ e are fighting against an enemy who 

 had become dominated with a philos- 

 ophy, with an idea, for which there is no 

 room in this world with us. It is a na- 

 tion obsessed with the single idea that 

 survival of the strong warrants any ac- 

 tion, demands any submergence of the 

 individual to the state, which justifies 

 their mastery of the world. 



( )ur contention of civilization lies in 



the tempering of the struggle for exist- 

 ence by the care of the helpless. The 

 survival of the strong, the development 

 of the individual, must be tempered, or 

 else we return two thousand years in our 

 civilization. 



AYhile the Red Cross devotes itself to 

 the strengthening of the strong, to the 

 support of the soldier, it is a duty <;f the 

 Red Cross to illume that part of Amer- 

 ican character and American ideal which 

 stands for the care of the helpless. 



I had hoped, and I think that all of 

 your officials had hoped, that it would be 

 possible to now congregate the strength 

 of the whole nation into the Red Cross 

 in order that it might undertake this, pos- 

 sibly the greatest work which we have 

 yet to perform, and that is to bind the 

 wounds of France ! 



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