And, indeed, we are closely bound together, you and we.  Without doubt, common interest and an absence of possible competition helps to that end, but there is something more which unites us—­it is our kindred sentiments.  It is this kinship which has created our attraction for each other and which has cemented it; it is our common ground of affections, of hatreds, of hopes; our ideals rest upon the same high plane.  To mention but one point, one of you has said:  “The United States and France are the only two nations which have fought for an ideal.”  And it is that which separates us, you and us, from a certain other nation, and which has served to bring us two close together.

We love you and we are grateful for what you are doing for us.  When the day came for my departure from France to represent here the French Academy I asked of Mr. Poincare, who had visited the American Ambulance at Neuilly, if duty did not forbid me to go.  “No,” he said to me.  “Go to the United States.  Carry greetings to the great nation of America.”  And he gave to me, for your President, the letter with which you are familiar, where he expressed the admiration and the sympathy that he has for you.

I have been traveling North and South in the Eastern part of the United States.  I have had many opportunities to admire your power and the extent of your efforts.  Today, in thinking of the American Ambulance Hospital in Paris, I admire your persistence in labor.  You have established this hospital.  That was good.  But it costs a thousand dollars a day, and yet you keep on with the work.  That is doubly good.  Indeed, one can understand that you have not been willing, after having created this model hospital, that some day through lack of support its doors should close and the wounded you have taken in be turned over to others; certainly those first subscribers undertook a sort of moral obligation to themselves not to permit the work to fail.  But, none the less, it is admirable that it should be so.  To give once is something, but it is little if one compares the value of the first gift to those which follow.

The first charity is easily understood.  Suddenly war is at hand.  Its horrors can be imagined and every one feels that he can in some measure lessen them, and he opens his purse.  Then time passes, the war continues, and one becomes accustomed to the thoughts that were at first unbearable—­it is so far away and so long.  Others in this way were checked after their first impulse.

But you, you have thought that, if it is good to establish a hospital, that alone was not enough, and that each day would bring new wounded to replace those who, cured, took up their guns again and returned to the field of battle.  And since at the American Ambulance the wounded are cured quickly, the very excellence of your organization, the science of your surgeons, and the greatness of your sacrifices all bring upon you other and new sacrifices to be made.