Article December 17, 1921 Issue

Signs of the Times

with contributions from T. Rhondda Williams

[From an Editorial in The New Republic]

A credulous, impatient, or infirm public opinion can convert a reasonably successful conference into a failure by misinterpreting the behavior of the conferees. An alert, patient, well-informed, and convinced public opinion can convert a largely unsuccessful conference into a comparative success by placing a truthful interpretation upon the work of the conferees—by discriminating, that is, between the success and the failure, by enabling the success to live and by insisting on the recognition and repudiation of the failure. A false interpretation may pervert and neutralize the more successful work of the conference. A truthful interpretation may redeem the less successful work of the unsuccessful conference by preparing the way at the next assembly for a more illuminating deliberation and a more statesmanlike action.

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