The Daily Alaska empire., 1928-10-04
The Signing of the Pact.
Manchester Guardian.) )


 The flags were flying in Paris on Monday in honor of a great event, the German flag among them and a German Minister was the hrst 10 step to the table to sign the pact that outlaws war Some minds will go back to that day, not ten years ago, when the pen forced into the protesting hand of another German Minister and a document was laid before him which seemed on every page to wound his pride and crush his hopes for the future of his nation We talked then of peace, but it was peace at the point oi the bayonet Germany had to sign lest worse fate should befall her. Germany, France, and England now met equals constrained by no force but the longing of mankind, 10 slgn the pact renouneing That is a great event, but there is another aspect of the proceedlngs that is no less significant. The pact is the work of American statesmanship Mir. Kellogg signature stands not only from Americas desire for peace but for her readiness to cooperate with Europe It symboizes her decision to re-enter the distracted world her withdrawal from whose concerns added much to the difficulties and the dangers of mankind.
 Some argue that this is merely spectacular ceremony, and that it is foolish to build upon it. They ask us to look at realities These states men sign, but what they saying under their breath? Anybody can talk like a Quaker; but, in hard fact, what concession is any one of these statesmen ready to make for peace? Where will they relax surrender any privilege any ladvantage that helps to maintain their prestige because it stands in the way of universal peace? This mood is natural and, in one sense, it is lsautary. No pact will substitute for action. However warmly we welcome this demonstration, must not let vigilance go to sleep or to press for definite constructive and general measures. Nor is it safe to exclude the pact itself and the diplomatic negotiations from which it has emerged in it's present form from criticism. The pact does not automatically turn the world into Garden of Eden. It does not even take automatically out fo Bedlam. But it gives statesmanship start it gives mankind hope It is like the League of Nations. Anybody point out the weaknesses of the League, describe it's failures, analyze it's vices; but the man who does not see that the creation of the League has put mans hope for peace and his nober ambitions basis is blind to the history of human institutions. | We put it in this way: Suppose that to- morrow England, France, ana Uermany had all fof them Parliaments that represented their lib- eral impulses; such Parliament had in l 1906-the Parliament from which South Africa received its freedom Could not such Parlia- ments use the League with great and immediate effect? So with the pact The pact may be I little or much at any moment; little if Parlia- ments want little much so soon as they want much Let anybody who doubts it put himself in the position into which Lord Grey stepped lin 1906-a world honeycombed with intrigue in which the best man might find his sense of duty bewildered, and then let him imagine a man of liberal mind taking office in 1929 with the League and the pact as his shee-anchors But the pact is not mere act of policy; it is an act or 1dltn. NOD0dy, therefore, measure its effect on the imagination of the world It is here that politicians, always called on to judge what is before them, most easily go wrong In the eighteenth century the old world of Europe was shaken by trumpet sound; the phrase the Rights of Man" cynical observer listen ing to it's ringing echoes might we'll have said Yes, what delightful and inspiring phrasel What noble idea! And yet 9 what have the rights of meant to
 the great master minds, the men of
 rhn pnairo
 them who bring happiness or misery,
 plenty or famine, to the multitudes
 whose ears are fattered by these phrases? What did they mean to
 Richeleu Louis the Fourteenth to e Charles the Twelfth or Frederick the e Great? What they going to mean t to Taeyrand Napoleon?
 Good common sense we may say and vet the man who looks back the nineteenth cen.
 tury knows how much of it's history god and
 bad, golrous and terrible, made by that un sophisticated phrase. Imagination is a force which politicians cannot control, and phrase had set the imagination of mankind on tn, e march The pact has stirred the deepest emo
 ton in mans nature. One of the most moving t passages in literature is the speech made b, Achilles to Pram, who had come to him
 prokeh With grief, to beg for the body of Hec . tor, speech describing the cruel lot that th. gods spin for wretched man, whether his fortune TOT the moment is good ill Whatever noIitic lans may mean by the pact to the masses og mo,
 an women 1t is the symbol of the most passionate
 or their hopes the enemies of yesterday sneak
 beside the dead as Greek and Trojan spoke o - their longing for escape from that bauntine - sense ot calamity which made the hour of vic e toy so terrible to Achilles. The Ministers wb, Q slgn are here today and gone tomorrow. tba nex, 10 generation may not even know their names Ru,
 the pact that outlaws war like tba n,esso a. ' mat proclaimed the rights of man. has passed ia,
 %st pesona the horizon of their careful plans into l. that mysterious world which obeys nowar tha, d the hlehelieus and Napoeons cannot bind l. we are aware that the Eighteenth Amend e neht IS very much like womens shineIed head.