VALLEY FORGE
Address at the 150th Anniversary, French - American Alliance, Valley
Forge, May 5, 1928 by Joseph Fort Newton
What memories, what historic echoes the very words bring back to every
patriotic heart! What deeds of daring, what almost superhuman endurance they
symbolize in the heroic legend of our country! As far back as we can remember,
in the pride and tenderness of childhood, our hearts turned to this spot as to a
shrine. Today we take off our hats and lift up our hearts, in homage to the
heroism of man and the mercy of God.
Surely he is a strange man, and no American at all, who can read the story of
the winter at Valley Forge, and not feel his warm heart with a new pulse of love
and loyalty to his country, which inspired such devotion and endurance. Who can
walk over the old campground, now a lovely park, with its memorial Chapel, an
exquisite poem in stone, a Gothic shrine both of patriotism and religion, and
not feel that he is indeed on Holy Ground! Such a day should make us renew our
vows to the ideals for which men were ready and willing to give their all, lest
we forget what the liberty we enjoy cost in sacrifice.
One hundred and fifty years ago this land was the scene of events of vast
import and moment, the meaning of which is felt today, not only in our
institutions, but in the life of the world. Not simply a new nation, but a new
kind of nation was struggling to birth in a new world, a nation "Conceived in
liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." It
was, indeed, "the last great hope of man;" and at Valley Forge the issue hung in
the balance - due to profound discouragement of the people.
Lexington, Bunker Hill and Saratoga were behind; Monmouth, Stony Point and
Yorktown were ahead. Between lay the snows of Valley Forge, when the people were
depressed, the Army well-nigh demoralized, its moral almost broken, and the
fortunes of freedom were at their lowest ebb. If despair had been possible, our
fathers would have been the victims of it in that awful ordeal of winter, both
in weather and in spirit, when the Chief city of the land was the playground of
the enemy, and the ragged remnant of the army, decimated by disease, at times
almost starving, was shivering on the hills of Valley Forge.
Even in the brief, austere official documents of the day we realize that the
hardship of this camp was more trying than the hazard of battle; and the diaries
and letters of the day which gave the vivid human color of the scene makes its
details poignant. Huddled in a city of huts, under an icy sky, half-clothed and
half-fed, the cause of freedom almost lost, tempted by offers of compromise,
and, in the light of a glimmering lamp in a cottage window a tall form pacing to
and fro, waiting, watching, planning, praying - such is the picture, and such is
its meaning in our history. Valley Forge was not a battlefield where men met the
thrilling issues of a conflict; it was a campground where they waited, suffered
and endured. It has a glory all its own, a fame complete and perfect, from which
nothing can detract, to forget which would be sacrilege.
The obvious strategy of Washington was to keep the British from cutting the
Colonies in two, dividing their strength, and defeating their hopes. Lexington
and Bunker Hill were memorable, but in nowise vital as compared with the battles
that raged about Philadelphia.
The danger lay in the middle states of the long coast line. If a wedge could
be driven through the center of the colonial domain, separating their forces and
resources, the rebellion, as it was regarded in England, would be broken. But it
was not to be so, thanks to the God of history who gave us a leader and
Commander who, alike in symmetry of character and splendor of achievement, is
one of the greatest men in the records of mankind. Frederick the Great said that
the Trenton campaign was the most brilliant of the century, and it was the
century of himself and Marlborough. But Washington was supreme, not alone in
flashes of genius, such as amaze us in Alexander and dazzle us in Naploleon, but
no less in more useful and less glittering gifts which won the loyalty of his
people, and led him through the intrigues of friends and the treachery of foes
to victory. In the whole story of the race there is no man to surpass him in
disinterested nobility, in practical capacity, solid wisdom and majesty of moral
character.
It was the military strategy of Washington to prevent the colonial republic
from being divided and defeated, it was diplomatic strategy of Franklin and his
fellow workers to divide Europe and, if possible, enlist aid for our struggling
cause. For several years, work to that end had been going on secretly, and in
the autumn of 1777 it became open and distinct, which no doubt explains the
conciliatory Bills, offering everything except independence, received and
rejected by Congress in April 1778, under the influence of Washington saying,
"that nothing but independence would do" In the meantime, von Steubon was
training the army in tactics and discipline such as it had not know before; and
Lafayette - "the Boy," as Cornwallis called him, derisively - alike by his
gallant courage and chivalrous friendship helped to keep American hopes alive.
At last, after no end of doubt, delay and intrigue. during which Franklin
revealed his extraordinary tact, patience and skill; on February 6th, Treaties
of Amity, Commerce and Alliance were signed between France and the United
States. The Independence of America was acknowledged and made the basis of
alliance, and it was mutually agreed that neither nation would lay down its arms
until England had conceded our freedom and separate nationhood. A fleet, an
army, munitions and supplies were promised by the King of France, who
immediately declared war on Great Britain. So, America was united, and Europe
was divided, and the issue of liberty in the new world was no longer in doubt.
All historians agree to regard this as the turning-point in our struggle for
independence; and so it was. But neither the fleet of France nor her armies were
as valuable to America at that moment, as the moral effect, both at home and
abroad, of the Alliance. It electrified our country; it cemented a discouraged
and distracted people; it restored their shattered morale, when, at eleven
o'clock at night, May 4th, the news of the French Treaty reached Washington at
Valley Forge - so long did it take the tidings to travel.
May the 6th was a gala day, by General orders; the army, after impressive
religious services of thanksgiving and joy, was drawn up under arms; salutes
were fired; cheers were given for the King of France and the United States; and
in the evening a banquet was given by the Commander-in-Chief to his officers.
Today we are met on this campground of an eternal fame and friendship, to
celebrate the anniversary of the thrilling event, mingling prayer and play, as
was done of old; beseeching the God of our fathers to make us worthy of a
history so noble, a legacy so sacred, and a heritage so heroic.
Once again, after one hundred and fifty years, we have heard the voice of
France, the land of Lafayette, in the words of its brilliant Minister of State,
appealing to America, the land of Washington, to join hands, as in the days
agone, in a treaty, openly arrived at, outlawing war between the two nations
forever, as the basis and beginning of a better world order. Truly he is a
strange man who can read such a gallant proposal, so definitely made by a
practical statesman, and not feel his heart beat faster. What hopes and visions
fill the mind as one reads the calm measured words of a great son of France,
offering an olive branch of perpetual peace, and the settlement of all disputes
by reason and law, thereby giving an example of civilized life to all the world:
"If there were need for those two great democracies to give high testimony to
their desire for peace, and to furnish to other peoples an example more solemn
still, France would be willing to subscribe publicly with the United States to
any mutual engagement tending to outlaw war as between those two countries.
Every engagement entered into in this spirit by the United States toward another
nation such as France would contribute greatly in the eyes of the world to
broaden and strengthen the foundations on which the international policy of
peace is being erected."
Here are great words of prophetic overture, worthy to be set to music; and
the land of Washington has made memorable response to a spirit so fine and a
gesture so gracious. They err who say, cynically, that no good came out of the
mad hell of the world war, when in the open forum of the world, two great
republics - bound by a common historic faith and friendship - lead the way to
the enthronement of law above force and reason above passion, in behalf of a
creative and cooperative goodwill. It makes a kinder light from a higher sky
fall upon this old campground, and upon the little white crosses in France,
where heroes sleep together, since, by the goodwill of God, it shows that they
did not die in vain.
At last, or soon or late, so the prophets forfeit and proclaimed by a Divine
pragmatism, men will learn that only the ideal is actually practical, and that
only when societies and institutions are built square with the righteous order
of the world, will they endure. The path of man through the ages is littered
with the wreckage of states and civilizations fallen into dust, because they
built upon force and not upon brotherhood. So runs the record of centuries, as
far back as written history goes.
Must it be so always? Is man too blind to see and too stupid to learn that
the visible is set in the Invisible, and that it is the spiritual - seemingly so
impalpable and frail - that finally rules, and must rule, because the universe
is made on that plan? Today it means much that practical men are beginning to
see what poets and prophets have proclaimed from time immemorial - that moral
and spiritual laws are universal, and that man is wise only when he learns the
way God is going and makes a highway for the Eternal Will.
Today, on these hills of Valley Forge, as we celebrate an alliance for war,
may we devoutly hope and pray that God has brought us far enough down the ways
of time and tragedy that we are ready, by His Grace, to make a great Alliance
for Peace, led by two mighty peoples who more than once have been one in arts,
arms, and ideals - France lending aid in the founding of our Republic, and
America lending aid in the salvation of France and so, by a grand adventure of
practical and constructive fraternity, lay the corner stone of a new order of
the ages, making peace a law and not a dream!
SO MOTE IT BE
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