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


another of the more or less Conven-
lent points al which to take stock Of
recent history. In the present article
and that of next Sunday I shall ac-
cordingly try to review briefly the his
tory of one year and to discuss the
outlook for another.
or 1925 one may say at once that
1t has been, not merely the best year
in all the period since the outbreak
of the World War, but quite as fairly
that 1t is the first in a quarter of a
century in which what has happened
may be viewed as opening new hori-
IONS rather than suggesting the march
TO new crises or the approach to a
final catastrophe. The first year of
peace, this must, on the whole he the
fashion in which we describe the clos
ing year.
There is, however, little broader
point of view which il is perhaps fair
to note at the beginning of the present
review. 1t is not merely that 1925
suggests the end of the war, it sug-
gests quite as certainly the end of
one of the great and more or less uni
fed periods in human history. There
is today on all sides to he met and
felt the sense that the world is pa ssing
IA pidly into new era. as we'll differ
entiated from the immediate past as
was the span of years from 1915 TO
1928 from that between 1889 and 1915.
War Consequences Abate.
For seven years-in fact. ever since
the armistice of November live
have been more or less deafened and
confused by the continuing conse-
quences of the war itself. During the
struggle there existed the profound
hope, at times the single thing which
made life tOlerable, that with the ar
rival of the termination of hostilities
there would come not merely peace
but something better than the peace
we had known. something more perma-
nent than the state which existed
before 1914.
1t was, therefore. one of the great
est disappointments of all time when,
the lighting over, peace in any real
sense did not return. The struggles
which had been carried on over many
battleflelds. so far from coming to an
end, seemed merely transferred to the
area of negotiation and there was an
enduring sense that if weapons had
been laid aside they might at any mo-
ment be resumed.
For seven years. until the dying
year was we'll entered, while we have
discussed the making of peace. we
have at the same time remained under
The shadow of the possibility of return
: ing wars; indeed. we have had in that
time a least two really considera bic
wars. those between the Pole and the
Russian and between the Greek and
the Turk. while nearly a score of Incl
! dents like those of Wilma, Fiume.
Upper Silesia Memel. Corfu and Mosul
have served to keep apprehension
alive and limit optimism
Yet somehow in the last months
there has arrived a sense OF an emery
! enCe from this condition. People all
over the world. but particularly in the
danger areas of Europe, have at la st
, begun to believe in peace. There has
been. across old and new frontiers, A
| growing perception that there existed
the same underlying desire not alone
! to get done with fighting but to get
! on with every sort of convenient and
necessary arrangement which might
enable men and women to live, to
work, to endure and even to enjoy
! life.
1924 Memorable Year.
! Certainly 1924, which saw the ne
/ sotiations leading to the Dawes plan
and the adoption of the plan at the
! London conference. followed by the
| ratification of the plan in the German
Reichstac. will be counted memo.
| rable and fortunate year. But in 1924
| men were still under the empire of
recent disasters and collisions such as
the Anglo.French quarrels and the
! Ruhr occupation: they were in appear.
ance at least moving toward peace
because necessity drove, not because
/ they hoped much or believed even a
! little in the possibility of this peace.
The atmosphere of London in the
Autumn of 1924 was one of expert
mental Cancellation. Ramsay Mac
Donald for Britain, Herriot for france.
! Stresemann and Luther for Germany
were establishing contact and dis
covering, with not a little measure of
I surprise, that it was possible for them
{ not alone to meet. but actually to do
/ business together: that the same de.
! sire to adjust and to ARA nge was dis
I closed by the statesmen representing
all three countries.
! Without this London conference
! Locarno would not have been possible
! But before Locarno came all three of
! the cabinets which existed in Britain
| France and Germany had fallen. Ram
say Macdonald had given way to
! Chamberlain. Herriot to BRAND, the
| Stresemann-MarX cabinet had been
! replaced by the Luther tresemann
government Yet the change had
J
/ the people. of these nations, and the
new cabinets were quite as obviously
anxious to continue as the old had
been to begin.
Americans SkepticaI.
| At A distance. Americans following
! the complexities and contradictions OF
cotemporary European history re
main somewhat more skeptical and
| S,1SpiciouS nf E,,Iro,o than iS poSSi.
BILE now to justify by any appeal to
the evidence. For us the Paris confer
! ence was a tremendous disilluSionment
which continues to exercise a pro
, found influence upon our attitude and
feelings toward Europe. On the whole
| we saw the conference gather with the
dominant belief that. the war being
! over. Europe would he able to make
peace, not merely with regard to i'm.
mediate war issues, but peace in the
! broader since; to adjust with some
show of permanence all the old causes
of strife and to eliminate all the secu.
lar reasons for international mis-
understanding.
After Paris failed in any real sense
to bring peace, when on the contrar!
the peace made at Paris seemed but
to accentuate the old divisions while
adding a full crop of new. the Ameri
can public arrived at natural, II in
exact, conclusion that Europe, while
protesting a desire for peace, remained
committed to its ancient rivalries and
under the guise of making peace was
making new wars or, even more pre-
cisely, continuing the war which we
had believed to be Terminated with the
I order to cease fire.
This conclusion. more than all else
has explained the growth of the
American sentiment favoring isola ton
| the decline in the sentiment favor
| ing entrance into the league, the ar
4 ~, of nd