The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1922-01-04
CONFERENCE
IS Seen AS
BIG SUCCESS
Statesmen Declare Gathering
a Great Success Despite
Minor Failures Opposition
to Diminish in Future.
WEDGE OF new DAY
by MARK SULLIVAN

VacAiiANHl YIN, Jan. p ne puDllC
generally distant from Washington
must be more than a little dismayed
to find some writer's and others cast
Ing balance, so to speak, on the arms
conference, and coming to a tepidly
comfortable conclusion that on the
whole 1t has been a success
The contrast between the spirit of
the opening day and the spirit of
these closing days is undoubtedly real,
but If you look into it closely you will
find that mere psychology plays
larger part in it than the fundamental
facts do
Thoughtful persons foresaw the
dramatic anti-climax which is the
chief cause of the present rather flat
tened out feeling. | suspect that
Hughes himself foresaw it and calmly
counted it in the cost as against the
advantages he gained by making his
sensational opening speech.
The day that speech was made there
was famous American humorist in
Washington, who remarked with the
intentional exaggeration of his role,
I'm going back home This is going
10 be bum show. They've pulled off
the burg murder scene in the first
act'
Tells the Story.
Now that sounds merely frivolous,
but 1t tells the whole story. It is not
for nothing that generations and cen
turies of dramatists have learned that
there is a law of the human mind
when 1t is in the role of spectator
(which requires that you must have the
big scene in the third act or other
isn Il.
an anti-climax Hughes and the
American delegates violated this rule,
and did it with their eyes open, and
they are now quite serene in facing
The foresen result of an anti-climax as
Tar as the spectators are concerned.
The conference as a show" is one
thing, but as mechanism for achev-
ing certain results it is quite another
thing. 1t is the conference as show
that the less thoughtful public now
sees and finds bit disappointing
Would See it Then.
If the whole, thing had been fevers-
ed, if we had had all the disputes and
disa greements in the opening weeks.
and if on one of the closing days
Hughes should have come out with an
unexpected announcement such as
that Great Britain, Japan and Amer
lea had agreed to stop naval competi-
tfon and take 10-year naval holiday,
then the same persons who now see
the conference as a dramatic anti
climax would be seeing it as what it
intrinsically is, sensational and un-
precedented success.
Furthern than this, it is an unhappy
fact that with some of those who now
proclaim the conference failure, it
is a case either of temperamentaI pes
simism or some other form of lack
of kinship with the atmosphere of en-
thusiasm and success.
Opposition Small
The truth is that the effective op-
position to success in this conference,
measured in terms of population and
other values, is not more than 20 per
cent If the conference were an or
dinary parliamentary gathering this
20 per cent minority would be bowled
over unceremoniously.
But the conference is a case where
decisions must be unanimous. When
this limitation is remembered, the
wonder is not the relatively small
failures of the gathering, but its great
successes. Even the failures have had
the good effect of drawing out over
whelming evidence of the fundamental
fact-namely, that the great majority
of the peoples and governments of the
world favor the purposes of the con-
ference This minority that resists
will find it's position increasingly un-
tenable There will be other confer
ences like this-they will come soon
and in them the resistance will be Il
constantly diminishing factor-( Copy
right, 1922 by the New York Evening
Post, lnc.)