Evacuation Day

On the morning of Wednesday, the first of January 1947, Lebanon celebrated the Feast of Evacuation. The procession of the President of the Republic proceeded to Nahr al-Kalb, where the ceremony was held for the unveiling of the memorial erected to immortalize the memory of the evacuation, in the presence of Lebanon's leading men, the head of the Syrian government and several of its ministers, the Arab delegations, and the diplomatic corps.

His Excellency the President of the Republic delivered a speech in which he addressed the Lebanese, both those assembled and those abroad, saying that the credit for this day belongs to our martyrs, to our cooperation with the Arab countries, and to our joining the organization of the United Nations, and is owed as well to the Chamber of Deputies, to the independence governments, and to the unknown Lebanese. His Excellency called for continuing the struggle after our glorious feast, for no struggle ends but another begins: life knows no stagnation, and it shows no indulgence to the passive and the faint-hearted.

His Excellency then called for constant sacrifice in the cause of the national interest, for self-denial, and for the forgetting of rancor and grudges, so that the blessing of independence may endure. He concluded by saying that a small country, if it conducts its policy well, consolidates its foreign relations, and walks the straight path, will have a radiance that the great country will envy it. His Excellency closed his great historic speech by renewing his faith in Lebanon and by praising its men and its distinctions, in the homeland and in the Mahjar. At the end of the speech, His Excellency raised the Lebanese flag over the memorial amid cheers, applause, and the firing of cannon.

The procession then returned to Martyrs' Square, where His Excellency the President laid a wreath of flowers on the martyrs' memorial and was photographed with the Arab delegations, whereupon the cannon thundered. At noon an official reception was held at the Lebanese Serail, at which His Excellency the President received congratulations, and the official luncheon was given at the Normandy Hotel at the invitation of the government. And here is The Woman's Voice, recording this great historic event and wishing its like, most warmly, for the sister Arab peoples who still groan under the yoke of brutal foreign occupation.