On the memorable afternoon of Monday, November 11, 1918.  President Wilson convened the Senate and the House of Representatives in the capitol at Washington, and there read out the terms of the armistice which Germany had accepted, and to the observance of which Germany was pledged with guaranties so strict that evasion was made impossible.  The President is an unemotional man, but in that hour he must have felt deep satisfaction in the fact that the document in his hand had been made possible by the will and the action of the great nation whose chief magistrate he was, and is—­the nation that with generous hand and prompt compliance had backed him at every step of the difficult road to triumph over the dark forces of evil that had plagued the whole earth and imperilled the very life of civilization.

His audience (the legislative arm of our government and the co-ordinate judiciary arm as represented by Justices of the Supreme Court; the members of the President’s cabinet, the diplomatic corps; and high officers of the army and navy) was less repressed.  As the strongest points were reached, all present joined in mighty applause.

THE NATION LISTENS AND APPLAUDS

The whole country was listening, for while the President’s voice was being heard in that place, the wires were carrying the words to every city and hamlet in all the broad land.

The armistice had been signed by the German envoys in the very last hour of the seventy-two that Marshal Foch had granted them.  Long before daylight, the news came by cable, the sirens and factory whistles were thrown wide open, and the whole population of the United States, men, women and children, roused out of bed, swarmed the streets and highways, and gave themselves over to such a jubilation as no country ever before had seen—­nor any previous day in the story of the human race had called for.  It is not to be forgotten; for by reason of the magnificent and final victory of right over might, another such day need never dawn.

PRESIDENT MAKES ARMISTICE PUBLIC

President Wilson in making public the armistice terms addressed the governing bodies of our country as follows: 

“Gentlemen of the Congress:  In these anxious times of rapid and stupendous change it will in some degree lighten my sense of responsibility to perform in person the duty of communicating to you some of the larger circumstances of the situation with which it is necessary to deal.

“The German authorities who have, at the invitation of the supreme war council, been in communication with Marshal Foch, have accepted and signed the terms of armistice which he was authorized and instructed to communicate to them.

TERMS OF THE ARMISTICE

One—­Cessation of operations by land and in the air six hours after the signature of the armistice.