OCR Text |
Show CARDINAL OF BELGIUM THANKS PEOPLE OF U. S. BALTIMORE, Sept. 16 In an address ad-dress to an assemblage which packed fhe Lyric theater tonight. Cardinal Mercler, primate of Belgium, thanked America for its great support of his countrv in time of trial and appealed for the continuance of this help. It was Cardinal Morcier's Hrflt for-1 mal address in this country. He came! here, he said, first, to express his ad-1 miration for America; second, to express ex-press his gratitude and third, to express ex-press the "need of American help for the social reconstruction of Belgium " "America," said the Belgian prelate, "had no territorial, financial or political politi-cal interest in the war. Rather was she bound by her traditional policy to keep herself aloof from every European conflict; America had in her bosom a proportion of citizens of Gorman origin or-igin and appeared to a foreign observer, observ-er, rather as a cosmopolitan agglomeration, agglomer-ation, than one homogeneous unit; but this wonderful country showed herself to be animated by one soul, permeating permeat-ing all the parts of her immense organism, or-ganism, and giving to all indniduals the same high ideal, the strongest bond of social unit and above all, honesty. hon-esty. "America saw Belgium struggling and suffering for honor; America could not help esteeming, loving, admirinp Belgium, she esteemed, loed, admired Belgium not in words but in deeds. "Our brotherhood in the worship of the same ideal brought both our na-j tions nearer to each other and my de-; sire to clasp your hand over this com ; mon cause of eternal justice Is the first reason for my coming ru n ' Even as Belgium was, in 1914, the ; providential instrument to bar the way; to the invaders, in order to allow : France and England to concentrate ! their forces against the German eolos-, us, so was America in 1917 the main providential factor of our final ic-tory. ic-tory. "On the 29th of June last, the Belgian Bel-gian people. King Albert, Queen Eliza-1 beth and their royal children at their head, in union with the whole hierarchy, hierar-chy, clergy and an enormous multitude of our compatriots, celebrated in Brussels Brus-sels a national thanksgiving day. A religious monument will commemomfn for future generations our universal gratitude. A chapel of this, our naUon-1 al basilion shall be dedicate! to the great republic of the I'nited Slates. "Accept, please, this resolution, as a homage of our feeling of admiration and gratefulness, towards your valiant troops who saved our liberty and towards to-wards Herbert Hoover's commission for relief in Belgium which saved the very life of many of our Belgian fami- lies." |