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GIFT OF 
 
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I G T O R Y 
 
 <By JAMES A. EMERY 
 
VICTORY 
 
 ^ADDRESS 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES A. EMERY 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE BOHEMIAN CLUB 
 
 ON THE OCCASION OF "VICTORY NIGHT" 
 
 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 3 , 1918 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO 
 THE BOHEMIAN CLUB 
 
 1919 
 
Printed by TAYLOR & TAYLOR, San Francisco 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 THE EVENING of Tuesday, December 
 j, 1918, had been set apart in the Bo- 
 hemian Club as the occasion of the Club's 
 thanksgiving Dinner. For twenty years the 
 Christmas Dinner has been a feature of the 
 Club's calendar; the thanksgiving Dinner 
 was instituted as an annual event in /<?/7- 
 On that first occasion, the Christmas ceremo- 
 nial of bringing in the Swan was gaily imi- 
 tated by choristers, in black face, accompany- 
 ing a great bronze gobbler, borne aloft in a 
 gilded cage, tfhe Jinks Committee were pre- 
 paring a repetition of this thanksgiving Din- 
 ner when the news of the armistice called the 
 whole civilized world to a feast of thanksgiv- 
 ing. At once the Committee renamed the 
 evening of December $rd "Victory Night" 
 and organized its ceremonies accordingly. In 
 the great cage, designed to hold the feathered 
 captive of the usual festival, was borne, in- 
 stead, the squatting figure of a tfurk, and the 
 cage was followed by a member of the Club, 
 an Armenian, in cook's uniform, brandishing 
 
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 392692 
 
a knife in triumph, tfke music of the evening 
 was furnished by the Club band, supplying 
 the martial tone befitting a feast of thanks- 
 giving for victory, tfo accommodate the vol- 
 ume of this tone, the dinner was served in the 
 Jinks Room, with the band upon the stage, 
 fhe Jinks Room holds comfortably, at small 
 tables, 3 35 places; on this occasion, 410 mem- 
 bers and guests were served. Service was so 
 difficult on account of this crowding of the 
 space that an extra hour elapsed before the 
 black coffee came upon the tables and the 
 speaking began. 
 
 It was before an audience held overlong in 
 its places by congested conditions and result- 
 ing delays that Mr. James A. Turnery, of 
 Washington, D. C., a new member of the 
 Club, arose to speak, toward the end of the 
 program, tfhose who remember the alternat- 
 ing hush and applause by which his impres- 
 sive address was attended and the enthusias- 
 tic tribute accorded his thrilling concluding 
 sentence, and those who, unfortunately ab- 
 sent, heard only the subsequent appreciative 
 comment, join in knowledge of the demand 
 in response to which this address is now pub- 
 lished for distribution to the membership. 
 
 ( 4 ] 
 
"Victory Night" in Bohemia was in cred- 
 itable accord with its inspiring theme, tfhe 
 function opened with a toast to the Com- 
 mander-in-chief of the American forces, the 
 President of the United States, followed im- 
 mediately by a song in honor of the Presi- 
 dent, written by William Henry Carruth, 
 composed by Edwin Lemare, and sung by 
 Lowell Red field, in uniform. Other songs 
 were rendered by Jerome Ukl and by diaries 
 Bulotti, who sang a composition by W. J. 
 McCoy, words by Charles K. Field, entitled 
 "Come Home, Boys." Henry A. Melvin read 
 a paper in burlesque of the latest Grove Play, 
 to take the place of the "Afterglow,'" which 
 the Club had been obliged to forego on ac- 
 count of restrictions due to the epidemic. Fol- 
 lowing Mr. Emery's address, here presented, 
 after an interruption in character by F. A. 
 Denicke, who gave a skit on Club conditions, 
 in burlesque of the Densmore dictaphone, the 
 program was concluded with Witter Byn- 
 ner's stirring "Canticle of Praise," rendered 
 by the author and Sam Hume, as cantors, the 
 band participating*. 
 
 At the speakers' table were seated officers 
 of the American army and navy and officers 
 
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of the British army. During the evening, the 
 gathering had given a rousing welcome to 
 Colonel Lubigniac of the French army and 
 officers of his contingent, in San Francisco en 
 route to Siberia; the "Canticle" ended with 
 the audience standing and shouting the tri- 
 umphal "Marseillaise" 
 
 tfhe foregoing is a sketch of the setting of 
 Mr. Emery's address, tfhe spirit of the occa- 
 sion is excellently expressed by him in the 
 words which follow. 
 
VICTORY 
 
 Mr. President, Officers of the Allied Armies, 
 and Fellow Members: 
 
 E" me at this first opportunity acknowl- 
 edge the privilege of the last phrase. 
 Your courtesy, more generous than 
 its fame, gives to the face of every stranger 
 the features of a friend. 
 
 But, sir, I feel that tonight however spark- 
 ling the surface of this fellowship, even here 
 within this place of light and laughter, its 
 depths are stirred as never before, by the 
 fresh significance of yonder colors newly con- 
 secrated with sacrifice, by the inspiring pres- 
 ence of these participants in the great drama, 
 by the realization of the yet startling and in- 
 credible fact that victory is ours, and anxious 
 ears already catch the distant tread of our re- 
 turning host. 
 
 This, sir, is neither the time nor place to 
 enumerate the causes nor conjecture the con- 
 sequences of this awful conflict. This is the 
 hour of rejoicing and gratitude, of glorious 
 and appalling recollection. The swirl of the 
 struggle is still about us, the sound of its guns 
 
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VICTORY 
 
 still echoes through the world, its stupen- 
 dous panorama rises before the imagination 
 like a vision of Dore. 
 
 In the magnitude and splendor of its scene 
 and action, the mingling horror and sub- 
 limity of its human circumstance, the soul- 
 shaking memory of catastrophic disaster 
 averted, of defeat transformed into victory 
 by courage unparalleled, sacrifice unequaled, 
 leadership unmatchable; in the physical, 
 moral and political changes wrought in 
 shapes of states and in the minds and rela- 
 tions of men and nations, this war is the most 
 tremendous far-reaching social tragedy in the 
 records of the race. 
 
 The world has been its stage, mankind its 
 cast, all history its setting. From "the isles of 
 Greece where burning Sappho loved and 
 sung" to the remote steppes of Siberia where 
 the Czech-Slovak Anabasis marked the renais- 
 sance of a race, it unfolded its thrilling ac- 
 tion. Warriors of the Prophet and soldiers of 
 the Antipodes fought among the relics of the 
 Trojan well; Samuri and Prussian locked in 
 death - grip for the soil of Confucius ; the 
 Wolf-whelped breed held the gates of the 
 Doges against the blows of the Magyar; chil- 
 dren of the Bowery and "South of the Slot," 
 
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VICTORY 
 
 brigaded with Mayfair and Petticoat Lane, 
 pounded the Bavarian where eleven centu- 
 ries before Charles Martel hammered the 
 Saracenic invader. 
 
 Tonight a new Godfrey de Bouillon 
 throws his Christian guard around the Holy 
 Sepulchre. In Gethsemane's garden a British 
 soldier holds watch where the faithful failed. 
 From beneath the shadow of the Pyramids 
 the First Consul called thirty centuries to the 
 inspiration of his legions. Allenby from be- 
 side the tomb of Eve might have summoned 
 the Mother of the race and invoked recorded 
 time to witness this "twilight of the Kings" ! 
 
 No community was too remote, no office 
 too exalted, no calling too humble to be 
 affected by this struggle or to participate in 
 it. Empires and republics, ruler and subject, 
 president and citizen, both sexes, childhood, 
 youth and age, soldier and civilian, gave life, 
 wealth and service to that far-flung battle- 
 line, drawing its support and inspiration 
 from the mines, the fields, the forests, the 
 factories, the anxious homes of three conti- 
 nents and a score of nations. 
 
 It seems but yesterday, for all the inter- 
 vening century of event, that August morn- 
 ing, little more in time than Bull Run to 
 
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VICTORY 
 
 Appomattox, when the gray-clad Father of 
 Famine led his locust legions over the Bel- 
 gian boundary. From that hour he made the 
 business of life the manufacture of death. 
 All the mind and hand of man had origi- 
 nated, applied and developed to sustain and 
 expand civilized progress were diverted over- 
 night into agencies of defense or destruction. 
 From the heights of the sky, even into places 
 remote from the Front, death rained upon 
 soldier and civilian; from the depths of the 
 sea it struck unseen its mortal blow. Over 
 tortuous far-reaching ditches of death, high 
 up the Alpine ice played awful never-ceasing 
 lightning that blasted into blindness, mutila- 
 tion and gasping horror. Beside these four 
 years of hideous, never - ending, unsparing 
 frightfulness, distinguishing neither sex nor 
 age, Waterloo shrinks to an affair of outposts 
 and Gettysburg assumes the proportions of a 
 skirmish. 
 
 But, sir, the very efficiency of Germany's 
 machinery of destruction became but a meas- 
 ure of the sublime and invincible courage of 
 her intended victims. While memory lives, 
 who shall forget that King who sacrificed 
 the body of his state to save her soul, whose 
 victorious defeat preserved the allied cause 
 
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VICTORY 
 
 and made vassal every heart that loves a 
 knightly deed? What Virgil praising arms 
 shall picture the best blood of Britain and 
 her dominions, grimly enduring through 
 those first terrible months that deadly hail 
 with slight protection and but feeble power 
 of response, yet answering as always with 
 eager bodies the battle-cry of Shakespeare's 
 Henry : 
 
 "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more ; 
 Or close the wall up with our English dead !" 
 
 What Homer shall ever greatly tell the 
 tale of France in such a trial as comes to na- 
 tions and may be endured but once? Within 
 the first thirty days of invasion her greatest 
 sources of fuel and iron, her leading indus- 
 trial centers were seized or devastated and 
 an eighth of her population held in captivity 
 and servitude. Her cities crumbled, her proud 
 capital often assailed and always threatened, 
 her manhood drained in conflict with superi- 
 or numbers, while Britain prepared and 
 America hesitated, her spirit never failed, 
 her courage never faltered. In the darkness, 
 she doubted not the dawn. Out of immeasur- 
 able suffering and loss, her soul mounted to 
 new heights of resolution and sacrifice, rising 
 above ruin and death like the shattered shaft 
 
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VICTORY 
 
 of Rheims lifting above the mortal desola- 
 tion of the plain the mutilated but uncon- 
 querable emblem of her faith. In a land 
 where every hillside had become a battle- 
 field and "every sod beneath the feet a sol- 
 dier's sepulchre," the very dead had burst 
 their sepulchre to stop the tongue of despair 
 or surrender. 
 
 To such Allies we became united, in such 
 scenes destined participants. Unprepared, un- 
 disciplined, unarmed, we went down to 
 Armageddon. Even in that moment Russia 
 dissolved into an impotent debating society. 
 Shortly Servia was crushed, Rumania in 
 ruins, Italy pressed to the walls of Venice. 
 The Allied fortunes moved from bad to 
 worse while America organized. But even in 
 that hour of crisis our people found them- 
 selves. Out of the gloom came light. Doubt 
 and uncertainty hardened into resolution. 
 Yielding overnight to unaccustomed disci- 
 pline and restraint, the Nation poured its 
 eager youth into camp, its boundless wealth 
 into the Treasury, its labor into every essen- 
 tial process of war production, its practical 
 leadership into every place of public service. 
 
 Out of the chaos and confusion of giant 
 effort slowly emerged the shapes of system 
 
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VICTORY 
 
 and order. The heterogeneous elements of 
 our citizenship, refuting the cynical faith of 
 our adversary, fused in the living fire of the 
 national cause. In the face of the impossible, 
 two million American soldiers ready to meet 
 the debt of Lafayette and Yorktown stood 
 upon the soil of France. 
 
 Even as they poured overseas fell the last 
 great staggering blows of desperate Ger- 
 many. Reeling backward under their impact, 
 war-worn, Poilu and Tommy, retreating, de- 
 moralized, met the American Marine at 
 Chateau Thierry, standing at bay in the very 
 focal point of destiny, saw, astounded, the 
 veteran hordes of the onrushing enemy halt, 
 yield and fall before the fresh brawn of the 
 West like ripe grain before the reaper. In- 
 spired by that spectacle of .critical valor, 
 Briton and Frenchman revived, rallied, reor- 
 ganized, and over the very pathway of de- 
 feat returned to unbroken victory. Within a 
 hundred days of that memorable morning 
 "Deutschland iiber Alles" echoed no more 
 through the air of France and the Marseil- 
 laise was rising from German throats in the 
 streets of Berlin. 
 
 Thank God, despite our hours of weak- 
 ness, doubt and vacillation, America was 
 
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VICTORY 
 
 not too late. Thank God, despite the poison 
 of the pacifist, we learned in time that the 
 murderous campaign of the German sub- 
 mersible could never be ended by the venal 
 rhetoric of a Chautauqua submissible. Thank 
 God, we can not only enunciate great truths, 
 but still have the will and the faith to vin- 
 dicate them in the blood of our bodies. Thank 
 God for all self-effacing men who nobly did 
 the work at home, for that American woman- 
 hood that sent and served its men and in 
 every place of famine, wounds and disease 
 descended like white hosts of ministering 
 angels. Thank God for our heroes on land and 
 sea whose service and immortal sacrifice vin- 
 dicate the outraged rights of the nation and 
 preserve the imperiled cause of civilization. 
 Thank God that out of this bloody tragedy 
 emerges the triumph of representative insti- 
 tutions, with new and greater opportunity for 
 the nation and mankind. 
 
 For a century our political ideals and in- 
 stitutions have captivated the minds as our 
 material progress stirred the imagination of 
 men. Stimulated by our practical exemplifi- 
 cation of humanitarian precept successfully 
 operating, Republicanism drove Monarchy 
 from our Continent and transformed the 
 
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VICTORY 
 
 Third Empire. But now civilization conquers 
 autocracy to find anarchy lurking in its ruins 
 and shouting democracy. We stirred an an- 
 cient order with precept; may we guide the 
 new with the practical example of ordered 
 liberty, developed through a thousand years 
 of hard racial experience but struggling suc- 
 cessfully onward and upward to reconcile in- 
 dividual freedom with expanding social 
 progress, under self-imposed restraint. Shall 
 we hold this torch for darkened minds or dim 
 it in the winds of the hour? Have we blazed 
 the trail for others but to follow the lost? 
 Have we fought the despotism of a single au- 
 tocrat to surrender to the tyranny of many? 
 Demonstrating in a life-and-death struggle 
 the practical as well as the moral superiority 
 of the individually developed state over the 
 state-developed individual, are we now to 
 compromise or parley with Bolshevism or 
 State Socialism, by whatever name, however 
 plausible its guise, however reputable its 
 sponsors or respectable its company? Or shall 
 we yield to like forces in other forms and 
 weakly color the very administration of law 
 in the face of intolerable social threat? The 
 very existence of popular government de- 
 mands that it shall not merely resist the con- 
 
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VICTORY 
 
 sequences but possess the power and the 
 will to control and suppress the causes of 
 social disorder. 
 
 But, sir, whatever the perplexities of the 
 .future, this hour holds the splendid vision of 
 glorious achievement. For tonight the battle 
 is ended. Heroic France folds to her breast 
 the children of her lost provinces. Italy, 
 redeemed, greets again her Roman mother. 
 Albert, restored, sits once more upon the Bel- 
 gian throne. Down the sea-aisle of surrender 
 has passed the broken Armada. The Crescent 
 descends in the Levant, our triumphant fleet 
 rides in the Golden Horn. The Crown of the 
 Hapsburgs hangs upon the cradle of the 
 Slavic Republic. In the very citadel of mil- 
 itary autocracy Socialism and Anarchy strug- 
 gle for the mastery of Prussia. Somewhere 
 tonight along that conquered border, an 
 American soldier, perhaps a Californian, pos- 
 sibly one of this fellowship, keeps the Watch 
 on the Rhine. 
 
PUBLISHED FOR HIS 
 
 FELLOW MEMBERS OF THE BOHEMIAN CLUB 
 
 BY CHARLES K. FIELD 
 
 JANUARY, MCMXIX 
 
392692 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY