“I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps; They have builded Him an altar in the evening’s dews and damps; I have read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps. His day is marching on.
“I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel: ‘As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal; Let the hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel, Since God is marching on.’
“He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat; Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet! Our God is marching on.
“In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me: As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on.”
America heard the call; America saw that there were no limits to the evils of the powers of darkness unless the powers of light should fight them; and on April 6, 1917, America declared her purpose to do so. As the small American republic once heard with rejoicing and confidence the word that Lafayette and Rochambeau were to bring aid westward across the Atlantic, so now the great French republic heard with the same emotions the declaration that American soldiers were to bring succor to them eastward across the same sea. The last great neutral nation, immense in power of men and wealth and energy, had cast in its lot with the forces that were fighting for freedom. The Allies, weary and worn with more than two years of fighting, looked to this fresh, great people to bring them victory.
A month after we joined the cause of liberty French generals and statesmen came to America. At their head was Marshal Joffre, the hero of the Marne. He visited Mount Vernon and laid a wreath on the tomb of Washington; he traveled through the country and everywhere he found statues of Lafayette and Joan of Arc and memories of great Frenchmen. To America Joffre stood for the ideals of France, courage, endurance, nobility of thought and action. Not since Lafayette’s visit in 1824 had the people of the United States welcomed any visitor with such love and admiration.