Article February 27, 1932 Issue

Re-Armament

RUFUS STEELE

The nations of the world wrestle eagerly yet in singular misgiving with the thought of laying down their arms. Envisaging an end of war and its doleful sacrifices brings a thrill of happiness, yet the nations approach with hesitation the common agreement which could precipitate the stripping away of their munitions. The fact is, the nations long to disarm, hope to disarm, but are impeded by fear at commitment's brink. Each fears to yield up its vaunted right and power of self-defense.

This self-defense idea is as venerable as the struggle of humanity to maintain itself. The primitive man defended himself by force, and through the social developments that brought the family unit, the community unit, and finally the national unit, might has held place in human thought as the final, though increasingly deplored, resort. Governments have experienced a sincere desire to scrap their destructive weapons, but the hidden fear to do so has led to hypocrisy and subterfuge and made diplomacy sometimes almost a synonym for chicane. Statesmen have been genuinely puzzled. Appalled at the toll of war, they have yet asked themselves this question: In the light of human changeableness, insincerity, and greed, may a nation safely consent to the shearing away of its martial power?

The truth underlying this question, the consideration of which is almost certain to affect happily or adversely the immediate history of the world, is familiar to the earnest student of Christian Science. He has learned that not mere displacement but replacement marks the order of all true progress. He knows that a nation, through the individuals who compose it, must have developed in some degree a spiritual armory before it can with cheerfulness see its material armory go crashing down. It is not in doubting disarmament, but in farsighted re-armament that nations may hope to achieve that peace which will not shatter under strain.

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