In the Gard

Regretting that he came to his home department attended by a Premier, surrounded by Ministers and followed by a troupe of Generals, President Gaston Doumergue spoke to "les enfants du Gard" on the value of peace at home and abroad.

The simple people of the Department of the Gard (South France) apparently did not understand the speech, but they were glad to see their dear, smiling "Gastonnet" once more and loudly they cheered him. Said Gastonnet to them, alluding to the Alsace-Lorraine religious dispute: "Long experience has taught me that ideas never gain ground by being either spread or defended with violence. Violence adds nothing to their virtue when they have any; and it serves only to hide their appeal, to prevent their diffusion and sometimes to make them highly objectionable. Ideas which have need of violence to attain diffusion and become accepted never lead to happiness, liberty or lasting peace and they never produce a very high or very human civilization."