The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-10-20
VlsCOuntCrey'sGreat
 IaSk By A. G. GARDINER


 America. There has been no more
 momentous Journey across the Allan tic In this or any other time It ts
 hardly too much to say that upon it's success or failure hang the destintes
 Of two hemtspheres. In saying this 1t
 Is not suggested that Lord Grey Is a
 miracle worker or that it is in his l power by the magic of his personality
 to resolve the discords of this dis tracted earth. But if anyone can re- deem the catastrophe of Paris 1t is | he. There Is much that is open to l criticism in his past. No man who filled the position Of Foreign Secre- | tary in the nine years that preceded 1 the war could hope to present a | Dlameless record. He made mistakes. l They were not the mistakes of the 1 strange caricature, conceived by Mr. 1 Bernard Shaw, who, with all his in l cisive genius, is the worst judge of : men, and who pictures Lord Grey as 1 a sort of PruSsian Junker and lingo 1 Inlperia.list. They were the mistakes
 of noble spirit caught in the tangIe 1 of circumstance, and struggling una vailingly to unravel the knots and set 1 the loom of the world working on a more hopeful plan He failed, and
 some of the failures belong to him. 1 But the claim that can be made on | his behalf is that if his high and dis l interested spirit had prevailed the 1 calamity would have been averted l and that the hope of world restora- l ton depends on that spirit governing | the future. The nations are perishing from lack of ideals, from the leader 1 ship of charlatans and edventurers, l from the dearth of character in the ! public life, from the absence of great 1 motives working through the tumult 1 of things. In Lord Grey we are send 1 ing to America the best mind of the l nation-not a cunning mind, nor a 1 clever mind, but mind noble in | thought, dtsfnterested in purpose, spa cious of vision, moved as only great 1 souls can be moved by the agony of these years, and inspired by the sin
 gle idea of rescuing the world from | the pit into which 1t has fallen.
 | And it is to America that We need 1 most to send such a. messenger, such
 a witness of our good will, sucn an
 assurance of our good faith. In the general chaos of affairs there is still l one hope of world reconstruction-it | is in the British people and the Amer
 ican people working loyalty together
 for a common plan of appeasement. | When the war ended that hope was 1 high. The chivalrous S -atesmanship l of America expressed through it's | great President, seemed in the as l cendant. Backed by the millions of l men who had raced across the Allan 1 tic to the rescue, it had brought Kaiserisn clattering to the ground. It's disinterestedness and detachment 1 from the squalor of European poli- i tics gave it a special claim to be 1 heard. America. had private end to serve. It sought neither territory nor indemnity, nor revenge, nor 1 power. It wanted simply to secure l the peace of the world by the abol- l ition of competitive armamentS and 1 the establishment of a new comuni- | ty of nations It seemed an attainable l ideal, for it was shared by the com l mon people in every country. And 1t
 would have been attained if there had 1 been statesmanship on this side of i the Atlantic that could have risen to
 the height of the great argument and 1 of the priceless opportunity.
 ! But the golden moment was lost. i Europe needed food and work and
 peace to heal it's wounds. But it was l denied these things. Its wounds were ! kept open and inflamed. Six precious i weeks were wasted on the Hang the Kaiser election in this country, an 1 election in which the mind of the na- 1 tion, instead of being moved to grand issues, was saturated with the 1 basest appeals to revenge and ignor- l ance, and we emerged from the sat ] urnaIia to the discussion of peace
 with the atmosphere poisoned by | false issues and shameful commit
 ments.
 l We have never recovered from that | indelible crime. It involved us in the l French peace of revenge instead of the American peace of healing, and it's fruits are scattered over Europe in 1 famine, disease, revolution, war, and all the miseries of a great continent l collapsing deeper and deeper into l barbarisn President Wilson got his League of Nations, but he got it at | a price that threatens to make it lit tie more than the pious aspirations l of the Holy Alliance. Under French inspiratio we plunged, with Mir. 1 Churchill joyousIy leading, into the infamous war on Russia, which will live as the most shameful chapter in | the history of this country, French generals were discovered prancing 1 over Europe like conquerors, and i our own troops under the impulse of an insane imperialism, were pushed i forward into adventures beyond Bag i did and into Turkestan, which were | ingeniously disguised under the name | of Trans-Cas spia. i The effect of all this, coupled with i the now universally repudiated i Treaty of Peace, has been disastrous i in America. Originally the antagon- ! ism to the President was largely par l tisan It used the cry of ''Back to i Isolation as a means of discrediting
 him and bis party, it sought to de- i feat the League of Nations in order i to defeat the Democrats in the next i Presidential election. But the course l of events in Europe has brought oth- i CT and more worthy elements into 1 the ranks of his opponents. Many i of those who backed him in his l struggle for a liberal settlement of 1 the world now oppose him because 1 they hold that the Peace Treaty has 1 destroyed the League of Nations. Europe" they say, "has chosen to l make an evil peace. We offered to 1 help it to accomplish a peace of jus 1 tice. It has preferred to make a | truce of revenge which will be the
 seed plot of future wars We cannot underwrite these liabilities. We
 must leave Europe to stew in it's own i juice. We must resume our isolation 1 and our freedom, and begin again