New-York tribune., 1921-11-02
By DR.. David Jayne Hill

90 lar as tne united States is con-
cerned, the primary problem is not
mainly one Of armament. There could
be no objection to the nations in
creasing their armament to any prac-
ticable extent if it were in fact neces-
sary to their defense. There has not
passed from the memory of the Ameri-
can people what efforts were made and
what sacrifices were endured to arm,
equip and send across the ocean our
armies and our ships to perform their
part in the great war. So long as
that recollection endures no true
American patriot can see an essential
v ong in national armament or an
essential virtue in disarmament So
long as right and wrong co-exist and
confront each other in the world, right
must be armed against wrong, or
wrong will triumph and right will be
vanquished. A proposal to abolish the
army or navy of the United States, or
even to limit them to a point that
would endanger the national security
on land or sea, would deserve, and
would doubtless receive, the opposi
tion Of every intelligent citizen.
Peace in Pacific Is Chief
Problem for Conference
What, then, is the real problem that
the conference has to solve? 1t CEN
70 oh p1& n
permanent peace and national security,
and it embraces all those issues which
are likely to affect them. Specifically,
the problem that is most urgent of
solution is the peace of the Pacific
Ocean. If that one problem is solved
then the conference at Washington will
go down in history as one of the
greatest epoch-making events in the
progress of the world. If that prob
lem is not solved, at least in some de-
gree-in a degree that will Justify
mutual confidence among the nations
bordering on the Pacific Ocean and
afford sufficient reason for arrest
ing race in naval armament--then
we should have to contemplate not
perhaps immediate war, but the pos-
sibility Of a darker age to come than
that in which we were living when the
great war suddenly burst upon us.
The conference at Washington is con-
voked in a spirit Of friendliness and
for the purpose of confirming and
strengthening friendship among the
chief maritime nations of the world,
and especially those which are to de-
termine the destinies of the Pacific
Ocean. Thus inspired, the conference
at Washington will have the primary
task of removing the necessity Of
armament, particularly of naval arma-
nent, by discovering the conditions
upon which it can be wisely limited
and progressively reduced
In attempting this achievement the
conference at Washington will not only
fully vindicate the desirability Of con-
voking it at the present time, but what
ever its conclusions may be, it will be
successful at least in this, that it will
clarity, and in large measure determine,
the foreign policy of the United States
for decade or more to come.
1t is often asserted in Europe, and
sometimes with tone of genuine sim
cerity, that it is needless and even in
trusive for Washington to take up the
subject of disarmament" while a
commission of the League of Nations is
engaged in studying that problem. At
the same time and by the same persons
complaint is made that the league can
do nothing for the limitation of arma-
ment because America Is not in the
league.
United States Leads
In Dissolving Armies
AS for land armament, with which the
leagues commission has been princi-
pally occupied, it should not be over
looked that the United States has led
all the Allied and Associated Powers in
the direction of disarmament by dis
solving it's great army of 100000 men
and reducing it's land forces to mere
police force. When it is pretended, as
it was in the recent meeting at Geneva,