Ambassador Sharp and his escort were received at the city hall by the members of the municipal council and other distinguished persons.  Adrien Mithouard, president of the municipal council, welcomed Ambassador Sharp, who was greeted with great applause when addressing the people of Paris.  He said: 

“Citizens of Paris:  May I say to you, on this day you have with such fine sentiment set apart to honor my country, that America remains no longer content to express to France merely her sympathy.  In a cause which she believes as verily as you believe to be a sacred one, she will consecrate all her power and the blood of her patriotic sons, if necessary, to achieve a victory that shall for all time to come insure the domination of right over wrong, freedom over oppression, and the blessings of peace over the brutality of war.”

The French Government also appointed a war commission to visit the United States forthwith for conference.

Resolutions expressing the great satisfaction of the Allied nations at the action of the United States were adopted by the British House of Commons, the French Chamber of Deputies, the Russian Duma, and the Italian Parliament.  ENTHUSIASM IN THE UNITED STATES.

War being declared, the people of the United States were not slow in letting the President know that they stood solidly behind him.  From all parts of the country came assurances that the action of the Government was approved.  Organizations of every conceivable kind passed resolutions pledging their support to all war measures decided to be necessary to carry the war to a successful issue.  Recruiting was at once started for both the Army and the Navy.  The recruiting depots were thronged daily and thousands were enrolled for active service while Congress was debating the respective merits of the volunteer system and the “selective draft” advocated by the general staff of the Army and approved by the President and his cabinet.

The full quota of men desired for the Navy, to place the ships already in commission in a high state of efficiency, was soon secured.  More men offered themselves for naval service, indeed, than could be accepted pending the action of Congress.  Volunteers for the aviation corps, the marines, the field artillery, the engineer corps, and all the various branches of the military establishments came forward freely, and a general desire was expressed to send an American force to the trenches in Europe at the earliest possible moment consistent with proper training for the field.

As the reports of American diplomats from the war zone, freed from German censorship, were given to the public, the martial spirit of America grew apace.  Ambassador Gerard’s corroboration of German atrocities in the occupied territory of France, and Minister Brand Whitlock’s report on the situation in Belgium and the illegal and atrocious deportation of Belgian citizens for hard labor, ill treatment, and starvation in Germany, added fuel to the flame of national indignation, already running high as the result of continued destruction of American merchant vessels and the loss of American lives by submarine piracy and murder, continued almost without cessation since the infamous sinking of the Lusitania, one of the never-to-be-forgotten crimes of German ruthlessness.