Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 7.djvu/237

 BARON D'ESTOURNELLES DE CONSTANT have been metamorphosed as by the touch of a magician's wand. Fifty years ago Europe flattered herself that she had discovered America. To-day she may continue to flatter herself, but her self-satisfaction is not unmixed with alarm. She is proud of her discovery of America, but she is alarmed at American discoveries. Fifty years ago you were her customers; to-day you have become her competitors. You have increased your production, both industrial and agricultural, in a few years, to such a point that our European markets are crowded with your merchandise, harvests, fruits, butters, tools, machinery, engines. You have grown so alarmingly quick, during these last fifty years, that it seems to me you are not so very young as we think.

Your marvelous progress, however, ought to surprise no one; for we say in France: "Good blood can not lie," and you have the best blood in Europe. Ignorant people call you Anglo-Saxons, but you protest; you know well that in your veins flows the blood of the most energetic and enterprising sons of the Old World. No doubt you have English blood, but the English themselves admit that the purest and the best of their blood is Norman. You have the blood of Holland—the name of your President Roosevelt is Dutch; you have the blood of Germany, of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Italy, but how much more you have of the blood of France. With what emotion I find everywhere among you the living trace of our fathers; from the