Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-10-04
As the PEOPLES of the World
V;e1O Endeavors for Peace
TEW ideas have firmer hold today on tn

TEW ideas have firmer hold today on the
common intelligence and common con-
science of mankind than that of cur
failing the causes of war. If it be even re-
motely possible to spare millions of lives and
save immense sums of treasure by allowing
reason and considerateness their say over
blood and iron, then by all means, urges the
worlds good sense, give the plan a trial!
This persuasion it is that rallies American
approval so heartily to the forthcoming con-
ference on ornaments. That undertaking,
when first proposed, received but cold COM
fort from the powers that be at Washington;
but no sooner was it fairly ALLOW through
the public prints than the people responded
to its suggestion with earnestness which
Congress and the Administration could not
mistake.
Much the same sentiment appears in other
lands. Minds wont to travel the ruts of
diplomacy and to find their keenest relish
In stale politics do not see that it is worth
while to make effort toward saving men,
whose deeper interests all accord, from
mangling one anothers' bodies over differ
ences which court of justice could compose.
But the rank and file who bear the heart
break and burden of war, whose earnings are
drained to pay the vast debts of conflicts
past and to prepare for those to come, these
listen eagerly to reasonable plans of relief.
1t was of tn m that Lord Robert Cecil spoke
the other day when he declared in the AS
sembly of the League of Nations, where he
sits as representative of the Union of South
Africa, eve must do something. We are be-
ing watched by the world and reduction of
ornaments is test case for There is
interest in otter things we are doing, but it
is by this that shall be judged. II we do
nothing about disarmament we fall Were
his own proposals not good? Then let
England, France or WhosOeVer would, come
forward with another. But let there be con-
structive effort of some sort; let there be
more than negative criticism, more than
staring doubt. 81 pray you,' he concluded,
take this seriously, for the peoples of the
world take it serioully."
Times come in human history when the
clutch of dead custom loosens like ice under
warming winds of March, and ideas long fet-
tered break irresistibly into blossom. So
came the earliest adventures and primal arts
of civilization, so the Renascence a-surge
with power and beauty, so the tide of revolu-
ton that brought America to birth; so, soon
or late, will come mans deliverance from
war. Not clustered idealism but the busiest
of common sense prompts present endeavors
to that end. 1t is the er-burdened taxpayer
who responds most keenly to proposals for
saving some of the billions of wealth now
sunk in engines of destruction. 1t is the best
Informed economists who perceive most clear
ly that the way of competitive ornaments
leads to world bankruptcy. 1t is the multi
tudes whose daily bread depends on daily
labor who call most insistently for safe
guards to peace. 1t is in truth the peoples
of the world' who look most seriously to the
conference on disarmament, to the counsels
of the League of Nations, and to their own
respective Governments to take definite
measures for prevention of war. Humanity s
dearest treasure is involved, it's heart is en-
listed, its WILL is mastering to action.