At Williamstown

In the U. S., at Williamstown, Mass., in the Berkshire Hills, there assembled last week the world-wide host of experts, theorists and empiricists that made up the fifth session of the Williamstown Institute of Politics.

President Harry A. Garfield of Williams College, formally opening the Institute, uttered words of God : " 'Let there be light.' " The words stood for the keynote of the Institute's month of sessions to follow. Whereas the past four Institutes had examined past and present, now the future was to be scrutinized, predicted, perhaps shaped, through candid interchange of aims and beliefs in a polyglot gathering, wherein at least a portion of the 232 men of theory were men of action as well. Lionel Curtis, editor of The Round Table (London), led off for the visiting speakers with a concrete proposal for speedy mobilization of the opinions of nations on issues of international import : Let every nation establish its national telephone exchange. At an emergency, let all accredited national institutes be called up by expert publicists from the nation's capital. Let the consensus of these opinions be laid before the world.

Senator Count Cippico, speaking a la Fascismo, declared that war was a "cruel necessity." "Each nation," said he, "has to defend its own right to exist, to remedy the defects of its geographical, political or economic situation in the world, to make good its own individual civilization as opposed to the inferior civilizations of other peoples."

Major General Sir Frederick Maurice (with monocle), former Director of Operations on the British Imperial General Staff, observed that European statesmen feared their own armies as the potential instruments of their downfall or as the probable cause of a greater war. Reduction and limitation of armaments was the problem which Europe had to face.

"Poppycock," was the virtual animadversion passed by U. S. Rear Admiral W. W. Phelps. "Disarmament talk is foolishness while economic conflict remains. War is a continuation of national policy."

Dr. L. J. Reed, Johns Hopkins University biometrist, presented charts showing that "When there are 200,000,000 people in the U. S., some will go hungry unless tropic soils are exploited or artificial foods contrived."

And so on went prescient minds lighting the darkness that was future, hoping their words fell not upon deaf ears.