OCR Text |
Show HOMAGE RENDERED FATHER OFAMERICn THREE NATIONS BIND TIE OF FRIENDSHIP AT THE TOMB OF GEORGE WASHINGTON. Representatives of England and France Jo'in with High Government Officials in Pilgrimage to Mount Vernon. Mount Vernon, Va. The flags of Great Britain, France and the United States floated proudly together on Sunday over the tomb of George Washington. Wash-ington. Beneath them,, spokesmen of the three great democracies paid homage hom-age to America's soldier and statesman, states-man, and pledged themselves, each to the other in the name of the dead, to prosecute the present mighty struggle against autocracy on the lines he himself him-self had followed in bringing America Ameri-ca into being. In groups of twos and three, an eminent emi-nent gathering, including the members of the French and British war commissions, com-missions, the president's cabinet and members of congress, had strolled up through the sloping grounds from the river bank until perhaps half a hundred hun-dred people stood with bared heads in a semicircle before the tomb. Without formality, Secretary Daniels motioned to M. Vivianl, minister of justice and former premier of France, who advanced, slowly into the center. Before the tomb of Washington, whose efforts towards liberty his own ancestors ances-tors had gloriously aided, M. Viviani delivered an address in which the whole force of his emotional power, deepened by the significance and som-berness som-berness of the occasion, fought for expression. Then came forward Arthur James Balfour, foreign secretary of Great Britain, who stood for a moment in silence, a tall, erect, kindly figure. Overcome with all that the situation meant in the lives of the two great Anglo-Saxon countries, Mr. Balfour abandoned his decision not to speak and gave expression to a few poignant sentences, evidently straight from the heart. England has honored Washington Wash-ington as she had never before, he stud. Marshal Joffre, victor of the Marne and idol of the French people, spoke two brief sentences : "In the French army all venerate the name and memory of Washington. I respectfully salute here the great soldier sol-dier and lay upon his tomb the palm we offer our soldiers who have died for their country." |