PEACE OF WORLD RESTS ON REAL DISARMAMENT

That most passionately cherished and most bitterly anathematized document, the League of Nations Covenant, was one of the subjects dealt with at length by Mr. Hamilton Holt, Executive Chairman of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, in a recent interview for the CRIMSON.

The political organization of the world is the ultimate achievement towards which the great minds of the country should now direct their efforts, according to Mr. Holt, who drew a logical parallel between the League of Nations and Disarmament as a dual means--inseparable and inter-dependent--of securing permanent peace. He declared that the immediate interests of the future freedom of the world from war rested on disarmament, and that disarmament was an inevitable sequel to an association of nations. "There can be no fundamental disarmament", he asserted, "without all nations agreeing to it."

The More Nations the Better

In discussing the work of the Washington Conference in the interests of world disarmament, he pointed out that the achievements of the Arms Parley were but a step in the right direction. "All the Conference has done is to cooperate with other nations in giving us cheaper wars. It has certainly changed the international medium, and has established trust and confidence where none previously existed. Hitherto each nation competed with its neighbor because each nation feared the neighbor. Under the veil of competition there lay a feeling of distrust, a lack of confidence. Now that stumbling block to international harmony has been done away with, but the Conference failed to touch the fundamentals of war. The present Four-Power Treaty is good, but only a step forward. It is good because it represents an advance in numbers over the previous pact. Four is better than two. The 53 members of the League of Nations is infinitely more to the good, and it the whole world could come in it would be the final perfection of the scheme. The more nations who join the better.

Wilson Sounded Practical Note

"Mr. Wilson sounded the practical note in the fourth of his 14 points--'Nations must reduce armaments to the lowest point consistent with their national security.' Now if all the nations were to band together there would be no need to think of the phrase 'national security'. All would be disarmed alike, only instead of a mere reduction, that world could be extended to abolition. We have disarmed a little. It would have been possible for us to disarm wholly had we accepted the League.

"There are two elements in the country today--the militarist and the pacifist. The militarist says 'If we don't prepare to put ourselves on out guard we will have war'. The pacifist asserts that we will get what we prepare for, and there is a certain amount of truth on both sides. The best way to straighten the matter out, perhaps, is to analyze the different types of force, since force must be taken into consideration. They are three in number. Force used for attack, which is aggression; force used to ward off-attack, which is defence; and police force to maintain law and order. The first two are disastrous, and if we can do away with the first the second will follow as a matter of course. The last, police force, is good, and is the only practical use of force that will work.

Presidents Favored Peace

"Every president of the United States from George Washington to Harding has been quoted as being in favor of international peace. In recent times they have put the expression in a more concrete form, but usually without any lasting result. Grover Cleveland's treaty was blocked by the Senate. McKinley tried to bring the Pan-American Union into a reality and was checked. Roosevelt attempted to work out the problem by international arbitration and the Senate turned him down. Taft wished to gain peace by judicial settlement and was blocked. Mr. Wilson created the Covenant of the League of Nations and he was turned down hard, and now Mr. Harding has sought world order through the Limitation of Armaments. Each had peace as his ideal.

"All great men have urged the moral iniquity of war, but there has been no effect. There was simply a worse war the next time. I believe that as long as men are not afraid to die none of the arguments will have much effect. We cannot simply abolish war without offering any solution, because war is an effective method of settling international disputes, and in war men will not count the cost. To get peace we must have justice. We will have justice only when we have law, and law only when we have a strong government behind its enforcement. Therefore a world political organization such as the League of Nations is the only particle means of world peace.

Undergoing a Moral Revival

"All decent men in this country want peace. The American people are undergoing a moral revival after the slump immediately succeeding that golden age of statesmanship which ended with the exit of Woodrow Wilson. I doubt the existence of any 'widespread misinterpretation of the meaning and mandate of the great Harding vote'. Every sign points to be existence of a general desire on the part of the American people for a League of Nations of some sort or another. Mr. Wilson has laid out a simple, direct and practical path towards the realization of permanent peace, and all we have to do is to accept it. It remains to be seen whether common sense will finally overcome pride.

"Europe wants us in the League, but is merely biding its time. They have been studiously courteous to us, we have been just as studiously rude to them. The foreign delegates tied themselves to no party at the Conference. They are not going to give up the idea of the League and they are trying their best to get us into it. They know that world organization is the only hope for world brotherhood. If America thinks she is going to scrap international co-operation she is very much mistaken."