Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1925-12-20

| That is why now. when Europe has,
in my judgment. made peace as com
| pletely as il did in 1915, when an era
| of relative calm, such as extended
| from Waterloo to the revolutions of
| 1s48, is beginning. the American still
] opens his morning paper with a de-
| gree of apprehensive concern. lest il
| may report new explosion in Europe.
Names which have had an evil dan
gerous connotation for ten years CON
| tinue TO raise the same horrid anXi-
| cites when they return in the cable
! dispatches.
Such an agreement as Locarno. al
| though it has been nneasurably ac-
| cepted on this side of the Atlantic as
| hopeful beyond all else in recent
years, just fails of ultimate achieve
| ment in convincing, because we have
| lost our faith in European documents.
| We have reached the point where we
are almost incapable of reading Eu
ropean contracts without instantly
| ccnJuring up still recent history in
| which the documents have been fore
| IDLY torn up or in which actions have
| belied. the meaning of written words
while the ink was still undried.
! Yet the reality as contrasted with
| the appearance. so far as Europe is
| concerned, seems to me hardly to be
/ iIiLSIhNrII' - Recently ~ the NUlIlIlSi
| of 1924 all Europe was still talking
| of conflict: the Ruhr was the most
! vivid Of cotemporary memories and
! the hatred and passion II had excited
! between French and Germans almost
surpassed anything in modern history
| between two peoples whose soldiers
! had frequently in a century refused
| quarter upon the battlefield.
! Talk of War Ceases
Yet today the outstanding fact in
! Europe is that, although almost all of
| the old causes for quarrel remain, and
! no one has actually abandoned any
4 thing of the national and racial doc
! trines which it has held, Europe is no
| longer talking conflict. SO far as
/ tangible and material things are con-
/ cerned there has been no great change
| in the outward surface, and yet there
is no mistaking the fact that If
nothing is changed in appearance all
! is changed in Interpretation.
In 1925 France has received little
real reparation and Germany has con
/ ceived no actual revision of the treaty
{ or Versailles. The question of war
guilt remains an open wound for all
! Germans. the Polish Corridor. the
/ Upper Silesian issue. DanziG and
Mcneil are at least as intolerab BILE out
warmly dS year ago. ana Vet the
German like the FrenChman knows
that he cannot fight today or tomor-
row on these issues. He almost eager
ly explains that they are not a reason
for fighting.
| said a moment ago that 1925 was
the first year of peace; perhaps one
| might say. far more Xactly. il is the
first year in which people and nations
have almost completely stopped talk
ing of fighting. The atmosphere of
peace. the habit of peace these have
at last returned. Even such awkwa I'd
episodes a $ the Greco-BulGarian COLI
sion can come and so and leave Eu-
rope calm. Some nationalist states
men in every country. men Of the
same outlook and habit of thought con-
tinue to discuss irrepressible conflicts,
impending crises. but the mass of the
peoples of all countries no longer
listen, much less believe.
Real Peace Seems at Hand.
All prophecy is idle and vet this
much can be said and II seems to me
deserves saying to an American audi
ence: The best and the wisest oh
servers in Europe are of one mind
that Europe is approaching-has in
deed entered-a period Of peace which
Is destined to last as long and with
as few major complications as that
which followed Waterloo in 1915 and
only came 10 a close with the revo-
lutions of 1S4s.
There is a rapidly eXpa ndinE realiza-
ton that the World War was not the
consequence of the action Of an in
dlVldual nation, which remains a men
ace TO future as To past tranquility
1t is being appreciated rather that the
war was the final explosion of forces
which had been gathering for fifteen
years before: it was the ultimate VIC
lent expression of national. racial and
commercial aspirations which had
been forming ever since the rise of
modern Germany and united italy,
ever since the liberation of fraction
OF the Balkan peoples.
The very perception of this has led
to hope rather than to fear. If the
war had its origin and its proXimate
cause in the German rejection of all
the principles of international rela-
tons upon which our common civili-
zatlon was founded. Their short of
some sudden and very far-reachinc
transformation of a whole people. the
danger would remain and a new con-
f1ict might be expected when the eN-
haustion due to the last had passed
Understanding Sought
For the first time, perhaps. In a
quarter of a century. the world-the
European world-has been able and
willing TO look effectively upon the
flow of events which made for the ire
mendous catastrophe. 1t has recog-
nized ultimate causes rather than rel,
! atiVely trivial occasions. 1t has con-
cerned itself less with blame and more
with understanding. II has been less
occupied in analyzing crime than in
explaining common calamity. 1t
has perceived that the war was one
which, wholly aside from military cir
| cumstanceS, was not susceptible of
victory for any combatant on the
European side.
Beyond and above all this, there has
been emerging something still little
appreciated and even less understood
, in the United States, namely. a meas
ure of European solidarity. Europe is
beginning to think as unit and not
as number of widely and hopelessly
divided units. The common culture
. and civilization of nations as totally
hostile AS France and Germany has
become once more n factor. The great
, moral and intellectual blockade of the
. war and the first postwar. years has
ended. Peoples which still hate each
, other in theory because of recent
wrongs are once more beginning 10
appreciate each other for reasons as
; coverable in the individual contribu-
ton to the common wealth of. art, of
, literature. of music.
To give a simple illustration. I
have been struck enormously in re-
cent months by the extent of the modi-
fication discoverable in the comment
of Germans upon Frenchmen and
Frenchmen upon Germans. There
is no reconciliation, there is nothing
that even remotely suggests forgive.