Imperial Valley Press

About Cordell Hull and his condition for the past weeks, we are all profoundly anxious to hear. How we have seen men from the very highest to the lowest giving their lives freely for the great causes in which we are engaged! One great leader gave his life for the peace at the close of this war. And yet it is not too big a price to give, and no doubt it will be paid not by one, but by several and, it may be by many: that they will lay down their lives for a better world and more abundant living for many, for fraternity and unity and community among the peoples of the earth.

Yes, it is true, and the editor of this newspaper was right when he said: "The biggest thing when this war is done and this election is over is the product of the Dumbarton conference." Maybe it was only a dream again that came out of those old oaks, that beautiful old mansion with one hundred years of history behind it, and with the very life blood of the American people built into it. Out of that old mansion has come another dream for unity and for world peace. It is the biggest thing for you and me to think about and to deal with.

"Oh," you say, "what good can I do, an individual like me; when such a great cause as this is before the people?" There is none too small to have his influence and his power in the shaping of the future world. No matter how obscure you and I may be and how limited the circuit of our voices, none the less every word we speak is felt and every individual comes into touch with every other individual. The social body, the whole world body is made up of molecules, and each of us is a molecule affecting the health and the life and the safety and thought of all the rest. And so if this were the last word that I ever had to speak to you, it could not be a better word than this, that you think upon and you talk about, you and I, the Dumbarton conference. Try to bring it into the realm of reality.

Now little Uruguay speaks up. She is obscure among the nations, but the obscure ones after Dumbarton are going to be amongst the great ones, and their word will count. Little Uruguay says: "Why not just rejuvenate the League of Nations, just take it and patch it up where it was lacking and put new life and new blood into it; give it teeth; give it strength; let's have it over again and this time let's have it a success." There may be more wisdom in what little Uruguay is saying than what some of us more powerful states may be thinking and saying in time to come. After all, the results of the Dumbarton conference look to me very much like a rejuvenated and revamped League of Nations. Maybe Uruguay has got the root of the matter in her mind and in her thought. Some of the greatest statesmen have come from some of those smallest nations. I could cite you instances from Cuba, from Spain, from those unexpected points on the earth.