The Hope pioneer. [volume] (Hope, N.D.) 1882-1964, 1919-07-17

III VI uOlC1l ll.ldLlOus Ol
all administrative problems which
were to require a continuing oversight.
What had seemed a counsel Of perfec.
ton had come to seem a plain counsel
of necessity. The League of Nations
was the practical statesman's hope Of
success in many of the most difficult
things he was attempting.
Wars Forever impossible.
And it had validated itself in the
thoughts of every member of the con-
ference as something much bigger.
much greater every way than a mere
instrument for carrying out the pro-
visions of a particular treaty. 1t was
universally recognized that all the reo.
pies of the world demanded of the
conference that it should create such
a continuing concert of free nations as
would make wars of aggression and
spo.iation such as this that has just
ended forever impossible.
Rule of Force Rejected.
A cry has gone out from every
home in every stricken land from
which O II and brothers and fathers.
had gene forth to the great sacrifice
that such a sacrifice should never again
be enacted. 1t was manifest why it
had been exacted 1t had been exacted
because one nation desired dominion.
and other nations had known nc means
of defense except ornaments and ALI
ances. War had lain at the heart Of
every arrangement of ~Europe-every
arrangement of the world--that preced-
ed the war. FESTIVE peoples had been
told that fleets and armies which they
toiled to sustain. meant peace, and now
that they had been lied to; that fleets
and armies had been maintained to
promote national ambitions and meant
war. They knew that no old policy
meant anything else but force, force,
force-always force. And they knew
that it was intolerable.
New Purpose Proclaimed,
Every true heart in the world and
every enlightened judgment demanded
that. at whatever cost Of independent
action, every government that took
thought for its people or for justice or
for ordered freedom should lend itself
to a new purpose and utterly destroy
the old order of International politics.
Statesmen might see difficulties, but
the people could see one and could
brook no denial. A war in which they
had been bled white to beat the ter
ror that lay concealed in every balance
of power must not end in a mere vic.
tory of arms and a new balance. The
monster that had resorted to arms
must be put in chains that could not
be broken. The united power of free
nations must put a stop to aggression,
and the world must be given peace. If
there was not the will or the intelli-
gence to accomplish that now, there
must be another and a final war and
the world must be swept clean of every
power that could renew the terror.
The League of Nations was not
merely an instrument to adjust and
remedy old world wrongs under a new
treaty of peace. 1t was the only hope
for mankind. Again and again had the
demon of war been cast out of the
house OF the peoples and the house
swept clean by a treaty of peace, only
to prepare a time when he would en-.
ter in again with spirits worse than
himself. The house must nov be CIV
en- a tenant who could hold it against
all such.
Convenient, indeed indispensable, as
statesmen found the newly planned
League of Nations, they saw 1t in a
new aspect before their work was fin.
ished. They saw it as the main object
of the peace, as the only thing that
could complete it or make it worth
while. They saw it as the hope of
the world, and that hope they did not
dare to disappoint. Shall We or any
other free people hesitate to accept
this great duty? Dare we reject it
and break the heart Of the world?
And so the result of the conference
of peace, SO far as Germany is con-
|cerned, stands complete. The difficult
tiles encountered were very many
Sometimes they seemed insuperable.
1t was impossible to accommodate the
interests of so great a body of nations
interests which directly or Indirect
ly affected almost every nation in the
world-without many minor comprom-
Uses. The treaty, as a result, is not
exactly what we would have written.
1t is probably not what any one of the
national delegates would have written.
But results were worked out which on
the whole bear test. l think that it
will be found that the compromises
which were accepted as inevitable no.
where cut to the heart of any princi-
pie. The work of the conferences
squares, as a whole, with the princi-
pies agreed upon as the basis of the
peace as well as with the practical
possibilities of the international stua-
tions which had to be faced and dealt
with as facts.
America Dis~interested.
We were welcomed as disinterested
friends. We were resorted to as arbi-
tiers in many a difficult matter. It was
recognized that our material aid would
be Indispensable in the days to come,
when industry and credit would have
to be brought back to their normal