Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 153, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 July 1919 — “Lafayette, We Have Come” [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

“Lafayette, We Have Come”

r. HE Fourth of July—how will it be celebrated in the future? M hat esI feet will the winning of the greatest | war of all history have on its obI servance as.a national holiday? The past gives no hint, for the Fourth SmQ has had many ups and downs in popu- ™ larity.and has seen radical changes jn its observance. But whatever the manner of its observance in the years to come, the Fourth of July will presumably have much of France In it, now that the ties between the nations formed in the Revolution have been strengthened and cemented anew. And as the personification of France stands Lafayette. “Lafayette, we have come!" said Pershing at the Great Frenchman’s tomb. And in? h sentence he told the whole story of our debt to France and gave our promise of Its payment. What was that debt to France that we have paid? The story of Lafayette is the answer. Marie Jean Paul Roch Yves Gilbert Motier. Marquis de Lafayette, was born September 6, 1757, in the chateau of Chavaniac, Auvergne, France. He married in 1774 and entered the French army. In 1776, in Metz, he heard the duke of Gloucester, brother of George 111, tell the story of the Declaration of Independence and the struggle of the Americans. Then and there he determined to go to the assistance of the Americans in their fight for freedom. To Lafayette “there was every enticement to remain in his native ‘France. He was the possessor of high rank. He had wealth. No military or civic post within the gift of the French throne was beyond his reasonable ambition. And all the pleasures and the delights of a polished, witty and luxurious court werejß his feet. On the other hand were the certainty of hardship, the risk of death and the prospect of no reward save perhaps the grateful memory of a people who had nothing but gratitude to bestow. In America there was nothing to beckon him hut a people whose ill-fed and ill-supplied troops had sustained defeat, whose chief cities were in the possession of the enemy, whose treasury was bankrupt and whose prospects were that their leaders would ascend the scaffold and theii* masses be subjected to the brutal control of a king who knew little of and sympathized less with those conceptions of freedom and those immemorial rights which the colonists had inherited from their English ancestors. But there was in the- heart of this young and-high-born French nobleman a sentiment which had ruled him from his earliest boyhood—a sincere, profound and inspiring love of liberty, a deep respect for the rights of men, a compelling admiration for a people who, in spite of the most • formidable odds, possessed the hardihood and the valor to take up arms in defense of their freedom. The voices of ease end of luxury and of ambition that tempted Lafayette to remain in his own native land were drowned in his ears by the voice of Liberty, calling from a far-off shore. So he voluntarily left alt the delights and the honors of the most luxurious and the most polished capital in the civilized world to cast in his lot with the handful of merchants, farmers, hunters and fisher-folk who were waging war for the rights and the liberties which had been guaranteed to their forefathers and to them by the Great Charter, and which had been denied, to them by the German king who then sat on the throne of Great Britain. He offered his services to America. His king forbade his going and the American commissioners were not able to furnish him transportation. Evading the officers sent to arrest him. he escaped in disguise, and in company with De Kalb and a number of French officers embarked from a Spanish port on a vessel which he had purchased, and.after a stormy voyage landed on the shores of South Carolina. A journey of 900 miles on horseback, occupying a month, brought the young crusader to the city of Philadelphia, where he presented his request to the American congress there assembled. At first he met with a cool reception. In consideration, however, of the importance of his rank and family connections, and'because of his modest offer to serve as a volunteer at his own charges, he was looked upon with more favor, and by a resolution of congress he was granted the complimentary rank of major general in the army. Washington received him with the greatest kindness, gave him a place on his staff, anjl from that time forth treated him as a son. The friendship then began was treasured by young Frenchman as the most precious memory of his public life. . There were giants in those days; examples: Washington, Hamilton, Franklin. But of Lafayette his friend De Vai-said: _ - - “There is the most wonderful man of this or any other age. He graduated from college, has

served his country in three different capacities, is a married man, the father of twins and one other child, is a major general in the American army and is not yet twenty years old.” Lafayette soon had an opportunity to show his mettle. The English general. Lord Howe, was approaching Philadelphia with a superior force. Washington marched out to meet him, and In the skirmish at Brandywine Lafayette was wounded while urging his men to stand firm. Lafayette wrote to his wife: “Be entirely free from anxiety as to my wound, for all the doctors in America are aroused in my behalf. I have a friend who has spoken for me in a way to insure mv being well taken care of, and that is General Washington. That estimable man, whom I venerate the more now that I learn to know him, has become my intimate friend. His tender interest in my welfare quickly won my heart. When he sent his surgeon in chief to me he told him to care for me as if I were his son, because he loved me so much; and, having learned that I wanted to join the army too soon again, he wrote me a letter full of tenderness, in which he admonished me to wait until I should be entirely well.” Washington’s exact words in writing to the surgeon were: "Take care of him as if he were my son, for I love him the same. On November 25, 1777, Lafayette was sent with General Greene to test the strength of the British advance on Philadelphia. Having disclosed their position near Gloucester, he attacked the Hessians with such fury that the latter were routed and Cornwallis, thinking that he was surrounded by the entire American army, retreated with his 5.000 men In hot haste. This pleased Washington so much that he wrote to congress asking for a regular command for Lafayette. A few days later Lafayette, to his great delight, was assigned to the command of the Virginia division of the army. ■ As time went on relations between Washington and Lafayette became steadily closer, the lattdr sometimes referring to himself in their correspondence as Washington’s “young soldier.” The intimacy between the two men was like that of father and son, the Frenchman being twenty-five years younger than the general he so greatly Admired. ' Having made a voyage to France on furlough he returned in May. 1780, joining Washington at the army headquarters in Morristown and telling him .what nobody on this side of the Atlantic yet knew, of the coming of the military apd naval expedition sent by the king of France to help the Americans. It was Lafayette himself who had been largely instrumental in persuading the king to send the fleet, together with 6.000 picked fighting men under Rochambeau and-the young marquis was dispatched in advance to carry the good news. In due time Rochambeau arrived with the army qf ‘6.000 men and Admiral de Grasse with a fleet manned by 4,000 Sailors and marines. Lafayette was put- in command of 2.000 men and directed to march to Virginia and meet Cornwallis, the British commander. The troops were so destitute that something had to be done. Lafayette after expending his own available cash borrowed on his personal account SIO,OOO 1 from \ the merchants of Baltimore. ' \ De Grasse’s fleet headed for Yorktown, and Washington, with Rochambeau, started to unite with Lafayette in the struggle with Cornwallis. How Washington made forced marches to the South in order the more completely <o hem in Lord Cornwalls; how the Count de Grasse with his great fleet arrived off Yorktown before the arrival of General Washington, and how Lafayette persuaded the French admiral to delay the attack until Washington could take command, so that by winning ..that fight Washington could overthrow the enemies in congress that were trying to have some one else made commander in

chief of the American armies; and how, when Washington did arrive, Lafayette was of the ver.v first to lead a storming party; how Admiral do Grasae’n fleet did; till and- moro thnn could expected of it, until Lord Cornwallis and his army had .surrendered and been disarmed, are facts that every good American knows. In this final struggle the whole force of the colonies consisted of 7,000 men of W ashington s army-, 6,000 under Rochambeau and 3,000 of De Grasse’s French marines and sailors Would it have been possible for us to win without the aid of France? Washington and Franklin believed not. Fifty years afterward when the question was asked of Charles Carroll ot Carrollton/then the only man alive -who had signed the Declaration of Independence, that venerable Christian and statesman replied: “It was God’s .will.” It will always be a much-vexed question how much financial aid France rendered America. It seems Impossible to straighten out the account Professor Marion of the College of France has expressed the opinion that the total expenditures were fully 2,000,000,000 livres. Much information will be found in his “Histoire Financiere de la France depuis 1715.” Fiske in his “Critical Period” puts the expenditure of France at 1,400,000,000 francs. Trevelyan states the following in a note to his “American Revolution:” “It was calculated that between the years 1778 and 1783 the war with England cost the French treasury £48,000.000. It was the main cause of those financial difficulties which led immediately up to the Revolution of 1789.” This would be equivalent to 1,200.000,000 livres (francs), or $240,000,000, at a time when the purchasing power of money was nearly three times what it is In our day. When victory was ours Lafayette went home to France. He came back for a short time in 1784. Then came the French revolution. Lafayette from first to last consistently advocated a limited constitutional monarchy for France. His experiences were many, including five years in an Austrian prison, from which he was released by Napoleon in 1797.

In 1824, when Lafayette was sixty-seven, he was invited by President Monroe to visit the United States. He came as the guest of the nation in pursuance of an unanimous resolution passed by congress. The occasion was the dedication of Bunker Hill monument. He made a triumphal tour of the twenty-four states of the Union. Every possible honor was. showered upon him. Probably the most moving event in the whole tour was his visit to the tomb of Washington. The climax was the ceremony at Bunker Hill. Lafayette lived ten years longer. When President Andrew Jackson heard the news of his death In 1834, he ordered on behalf of the whole American people “that the same honors be rendered upon this occasion at the different military and naval stations as were observed upon the decease of Washington, the Father of His Country, and his contemporary in arms.” Lafayette has been dead 85 years. His clay is dust But his soul still lives. It has breathed courage into the breasts of war-worn French soldiers.’' It has wept over the deported, enslaved and outraged women of his native land—over the slaughter the innocents. And who may doubt that his soul called across the ocean: “Help us, America I Help Us as I helped you!” At first we did»not hear, or if hearing, did not answer. But at last we heard and heeded and went. The fighting men of France, staggering with wounds, dizzy with fatigue, and the women of France, white with horror over an impending fate worse than death, saw the Star-Spanglec Banner afar and cried in f thankfulness: “The Americans are comingl” We arrived— young, • husky, smiling, larkinfl fighting men. The French loved us for our looks and our ways. But could we fight? Then came June and Chateau-Thierrv, when tfe stopped the flower of the German attacked In turn, put the Hun on the run and kept him running I No wonder al) France went delirious with joy. That was what we promised through “Black Jack” Pershing, when he saluted at the tomb in the little cemetery of Piepus in Paris and said: “Lafayette, we are here.” And we made the promise good. He and his young, husky, smiling, larking, fighting men struck the finishing blow which guaranteed that Frenchmen may pursue their honest toil in peace ami French women, with babe at breast, may sleep at without fear of the Beast. Such was Lafayette —a great soul, a gallant soul, the living embodiment of the noblest ideal for which men can generously live and gloriously die. ■ '■ ' '‘'Ct?' ■ • “The liberty we hold secure, The soil on which we tread. That air of freedom that we breathe. The flag that floats o’erhead; That nation on whose history 4 ... The sun shall never set— Al! that we have and hold we owe ; To France — -and Lafayette.*