Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 55, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 October 1919 — “World Statesmanship Will Be Sorely Tried in the Next Few Years” [ARTICLE]

“World Statesmanship Will Be Sorely Tried in the Next Few Years”

By ROBERT LANSING.

, U. S. Secretary of State

Undoubtedly there is a great danger in the world today. Western civilization is still dazed by the shock of four and a half years of destruction. Industry and commerce are not yet restored. All of Europe is impoverished ; parts of it are starving. Its whole political fiber has been shot through. *. World statesmanship will be sorely tried in the next few years. Two things are essential: first an alert, intelligent, interested public opinion; and second co-operation of the nations. The former is needed both as a check on any sinister purposes thatmay crop up and as the great support for common action. The second is essential, unless the nations are to return to a selfish particularism which can only breed the inost dangerous dispute. The peace conference has been history’s greatest instance of a unified world statesmanship directing the moral and material resources of the world’s family of nations. To allow the spirit behind it to disintegrate at this moment of emergency, when united action is imperative, would be fatal to all the hopes of permanent peace with which we entered the war. If it is true that one nation can destroy the equilibrium of all it is all the more true that each nation is bound by its-own law of self-preserva-tion to co-operate with the others to check troubles before they get their headway. So I come home pleased but not complacent with the outcome of the past six months and hopeful but not in the least unmindful of the problems of the next few years.