Paris Peace Conf. 811.001/336a: Telegram
The Commission to Negotiate Peace to the Committee on Public Information
922. Statement by President Wilson upon leaving France.
“As I look back over the eventful months I have spent in France, my memory is not of conferences and hard work alone, but also of innumerable acts of generosity and friendship which have made me feel how genuine the sentiments of France are towards the people of America, and how fortunate I have been to be the representative of our people in the midst of a nation which knows how to show its kindness with so much charm and such open manifestation of what is in its heart. Deeply happy as I am at the prospect of joining my own countrymen again, I leave France with genuine regret, my deep sympathy for her people and belief in her future confirmed, my thought enlarged by the privilege of association with her public men, conscious of more than one affectionate friendship formed, and profoundly grateful for unstinted hospitality and for countless kindnesses which have made me feel welcome and at home. I take the liberty of bidding France God-speed as well as good bye, and of expressing once more my abiding interest and entire confidence in her future. Woodrow Wilson.”