Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-11-03


w ganda, which heretofore has been
largely an instrument Of arrant sell
fishness, distrust and hate, ii the cause OF
good will and cooperation? The suggestion
comes from a writer in the EUROPE NOU-
VELLE of Paris, who does not have to look
far to see that the governing idea of foreign
policy is all too often that of the proverb
"My neighbor is my enemy; my nelghbor's
neighbor is my friend" TO disabuse the
popular mind, as well as the official mind,
of this false conception is a task we'll worth,
he thinks, the most earnest endeaVor
Certainly there is no more useful end to
which education in it's larger reaches can be
turned than to dispelling prejudice that
holds people at odds and to revealing truth
that is the one sure way to friendly re!a-
tions. For years before the World war the
powers that color and mould public feeling
were engaged, not always and everywhere
but with deplorable frequency, in just the
contrary process In Germany was taught
preached and written the doctrine that for
eigners were foes of the imperial Teuton and
besides, were altogether inferior. Not to be
a good neighbor, but to be a superman, was
the ideal of the Hohenzollern cult; not to
play a serviceable and generous part In the
business and game of the world, put TO
nurse ones self-importance, and flnd a
"place in the sum-" and cast a gigantic shad-
in others nor that it left its holders absurd
1y and fatally ignorant of the real character
of the peoples they despised. g.
The better part of Germany, it now happily
appears. has learned something OF how brit
tle and foolish are NietZsche and all his
works; something of how essential it is to
national prosperity that country snail I'M
derstand it's neighbours shall be understood
by them, and shall hold the confidence when
only Just and generous dealing earns VIII
others shut their minds to the truth Whlch
defeat and humiliation have taught Ger
MANY? If so. they must learn as she learned.
For in the closely woven, overwhelming in
terests of this Misunderstanding world there
can be no holding aloof of nations one from
the other. Their economic life alone pre-
destines them to divers relationships. Meet
thew must-agreeably or with clash1ng
minds as potential friends or potential foes.
Whatever will lessen friction, invite CO.
working for the common good will make LOT
prosperity and for peace. lnternauonal
trade conferences are of value for this pur-
pose; so are fraternal and religious conven-
lions; so, too, are interchanges OF VISITS Dy
scientists and men of letters, and one coun-
try's reading of another's history and htera-
ture. But means like these will reach, a1ter
ALL comparatively small and distinctive
groups amongst the vast multltudes whose
thought and impulse are the stuff OF inter-
national relations These small groups, 1t is
true. could come we'll nigh determining the
drift if they but realized their possible 1ntlu-
ence and exerted it with due vigor and whole
someness. But evidently there is need or a
broader range and more numerous contacts
between the mass-minds of nations. There
Is need of enlightenment, of. Interpretation,
of informative and educative work that will
not be "caviare to the general" There is
need, in a word,-if it be taken in its better
sense-of propaganda
Something of what American Journalism
civ of 10 M
did to precipitate war with Spain, and some
thing of what the yellow element of the
press now would like to do to make trouble
between the United States and Japan, can be
done constructively in the cause of 1nterna-
tional goodwill. Highly significant ano
gratifying it is that the majority OF repre-
sentative newspapers and magazines in this
country are friendly to the purpose, though
they are not always as energetic in its be-
half as they might be- Significant it is, too
that representative journals of Europe
speaking from centers of age-old conflict
and distrust, plead this same good cause.