VOLUME XLIII

T

HE greatest naval battle in recorded history has just been fought. More ships, and of greater value, than ever went down in one campaign before, were sunk. This most costly of all naval engagements was fought on dry land, without a shot fired, or a flag hauled down, or a life lost. All three nations involved were gloriously defeated. Plenipotentiaries of all three congratulated one another on their staggering losses, and then went to the White House together, where Mrs. Harding poured tea. That was the Battle of Washington, the most expensive, the cheapest, the most victoriously unsuccessful naval encounter in human annals. One sole weapon sunk all this machinery of death. That weapon was character. It took just character to put mutual trust in other men's "honor, faith, and good-will" and to cast out the seven devils of pride, hate, fear, envy, greed, vainglory, and deceit that infest all peoples along with the nobler instincts to which the President appealed and which responded so triumphantly.

The tangible results achieved at Washington may be more or less than this person or that had hoped. No matter. The thing that counts is, that a good method in world affairs has been tried and proved successful. This method is to talk about things instead of fighting about them.

The Conference has demonstrated that an act of faith can sink battleships, and that tongues can talk wars to death.

Neither President Harding, who called the gathering together, nor the delegates who attended, believed that their faith would be

NUMBER 3

great enough to sink all battleships nor their tongues long enough to strangle all wars. But never has so great a faith been so immediately vindicated. The world-the peoples of the world who have watched their statesmen in this novel rôle—will not soon forget that the appeal to reason and good-will can have such benign and far-reaching peaceful conquests. They will be ever slower to believe in the necessity or the utility of war and of preparations for war.

President Harding deserves well of history for his share in the Conference. Whatever brains may have fashioned the skeleton of formulas and facts on which the fair flesh of performance has been hung, it was his spirit that breathed the breath of life into the whole. Europe tried every device that the most cunning minds could frame, and their end was war. The President left the formulas to ingenious assistants, and gave his whole energy to the creation of a spirit of mutual confidence. The delegates to the Conference saw him, heard him, and found no guile in him. They trusted him. They began to trust one another. In such an atmosphere, minds can meet. Considering the vastness of the issues involved and the depth of old encrusted suspicions, they met with astonishing quickness. But for the President's sincerity and charm, it may well be doubted if they would have met at all. The Conference was the triumph of an ideal and of good-will; and Mr. Harding, of all those present, best represented in his person and his character the American conscience and the American spirit that made it possible and successful.