CANNED GOOD WILL

The blank cartridge that starts on its course another of the infinite relay of plans for good is fired by the correspondent whose letter suggests the foundation of a Peace Museum. The institute so built might surely offer its gallery of portraits and memorials as a Mecca to a peaceful world; and there would stand a library likewise devoted to this ideal; and, if the founders were really generous, the edifice housing these mementoes would be quite as inspiring as its contents. There is the raw material for a highly pleasing concretion of an ideal.

But, causeless optimism aside, the plan is not a bit more promising than its myriad forerunners. Too numerous are names like Ford's Peace Ship and the Hague Conferences and the Neutrality Agreements. These, except the first, had at least a practical excuse for existence. There was hope for more humane conditions in war; there was interest in preserving the independence of the small nation. But all the treaties of civilization have not been able to outface primitive necessity. Why hope for anything better under the spire of a single morgue of past successes--and failures in the endless striving? At best the Peace Museum is a feeble hope; at worst, a jest.