Cary T. Grayson Diary

Cary T. Grayson Diary

Grayson, Cary T. (Cary Travers), 1878-1938

WWP17181

1919 May 30

Cary T. Grayson Papers, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library, Staunton, Virginia

English

The President after breakfast went immediately to his study. There was a brief session of the Big Four during the morning, at which the question of what disposition was to be made of the German counter-proposals was discussed without any action whatever being taken thereon. The session adjourned early because this being Memorial Day the President was scheduled to deliver the leading address here. Following an early lunch the President, Mrs. Wilson and I rode to the Suresnes Cemetery, on the outskirts of Paris, where six thousand American dead are buried, and where some of the notable Americans who succumbed through illness during the war, including Willard D. Straight, were buried. The scene was very beautiful. The regularly arranged graves, each surmounted by a white cross, seemed to cover the whole hillside. The speaker’s stand had been arranged so that the beauties of nature stretched far beyond towards the horizon. There was a very large attendance, among the guests being Lord Derby, the British Ambassador to France, and practically all of the American officials. Tardieu represented the Franco-American Commission at the ceremony, while Field Marshal Foch himself attended as a tribute to the American dead. The weather was very, very warm and a number of women fainted during the services. The President’s speech was declared by all who listened to it to be one of his most striking state documents. He fearlessly denounced the old diplomatic atmosphere of bargaining, which he characterized as responsible for the war, and referred to the League of Nations as the legacy of the fallen sons of America. The speech was as follows:

After the President had concluded his address he personally as Commander-in-Chief and as Honorary President of the Boy Scouts of America laid a wreath representing that organization upon one of the graves. the band then played Chopin’s Funeral March, swinging into the National Anthem and a verse of the Marseilles. Taps were sounded at the conclusion of the ceremony, and the clear notes of the bugle sounding out through the still air brought tears to nearly every one present.

A very impressive feature of the day’s ceremony at the cemetery was when a French lady came across to where the President was standing after he had despo deposited the wreath in behalf of the Boy Scouts, and addressing him said: “Mr. President, may I be permitted to add these flowers to those which you have just deposited here as a tribute to the American dead, who, in sacrificing their lives, saved the lives of thousands of Frenchmen?” The President nodded, and the woman laid the flowers on the grave, while Field Marshal Foch, stern and hard as he usually is, turned away with tears in his eyes.

The President and Mrs. Wilson their return to the temporary White House went for a motor ride in the suburbs, returning just in time for dinner; and after dinner both rested while the President played Canfield in Mrs. Wilson’s apartment.

Diary