Article December 10, 1921 Issue

Signs of the Times

with contributions from Arthur J. Balfour, Stephane Lauzanne, Ward G. Foster, E. S. Martin

[Arthur J. Balfour as quoted in The Boston Herald]

"But there is something in this scheme [the disarmament plan] which is above and beyond numerical calculation. There is something which goes to the root which is concerned with the highest international morality. This scheme after all—what does it do? It makes idealism a practical proposition. It takes hold of the dream which reformers, poets, publicists, even potentates, as we heard the other day, have from time to time put before mankind as the goal to which human endeavor should aspire. A narrative of all the attempts made, of all the schemes advanced for diminishing the sorrows of war is a melancholy one. Some fragments were laid before you by our chairman on Saturday. They were not exhilarating. They showed how easy it is to make professions and how difficult it is to carry those professions into effect.

"What makes this scheme a landmark is that combined with the profession is the practice; that in addition to the expression, the eloquent expression of good intentions, in which the speeches of men of all nations have been rich, a way has been found in which, in the most striking fashion, in a manner which must touch the imagination of everybody, which must come home to the dullest brain and the hardest heart, the Government of the United States have shown their intention not merely to say that peace is a very good thing, that war is horrible, but there is a way by which wars can really be diminished, by which the burdens of peace, almost as intolerable as the burdens of war, can really be lightened for the populations of the world."

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