our soil sanctified and our symbol glorified by the
great ideas of liberty and religion,--love of freedom and of God,--are
in the foremost vanguard of this great caravan of humanity. To us
rulers look, and learn justice, while they tremble; to us the nations
look, and learn to hope, while they rejoice. Our heritage is all the
love and heroism of liberty in the past; and all the great of the Old
World are our teachers.

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.

A CONGRESSIONAL MESSAGE

FROM PRESIDENT WILSON'S ANNUAL ADDRESS TO

CONGRESS DECEMBER 2, 1918

GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS: The year that has elapsed since I last stood
before you to fulfill my Constitutional duty to give the Congress from
time to time information on the state of the Union has been so crowded
with great events, great processes, and great results, that I cannot
hope to give you an adequate picture of its transactions or of the
far-reaching changes which have been wrought in the life of our nation
and of the world. You have yourselves witnessed these things, as I
have. It is too soon to assess them; and we who stand in the midst of
them and are part of them are less qualified than men of another
generation will be to say what they mean or even what they have been.
But some great outstanding facts are unmistakable and constitute, in a
sense, part of the public business with which it is our duty to deal.
To state them is to set the stage for the legislative and executive
action which must grow out of them and which we have yet to shape and
determine.

A year ago we had sent 145,198 men overseas. Since then we have sent
1,950,513, an average of 162,542 each month, the number in fact rising
in May last to 245,951, in June to 278,760, in July to 307,182, and
continuing to reach similar figures in August and September--in August
289,570 and in September 257,438. No such movement of troops ever took
place before across 3000 miles of sea, followed by adequate equipment
and supplies, and carried safely through extraordinary dangers of
attack--dangers which were alike strange and infinitely difficult to
guard against. In all this movement only 758 men were lost by enemy
attacks--630 of whom were upon a single English transport which was
sunk near the Orkney Islands.

I need not tell you what lay back of this great movement of men and
material. It is not invidious to say that back of it lay a supporting
organization of the industries of the country and of a