Las Vegas Age

OBSERVATIONS
Grist from the Daily Grind
By C. P. S.

Peace Work
Hugh Gibson, representing the United States at the League of Nations disarmament conference, complains that his apartment has been searched, files rifled and brief cases slit by marauders. Just looking for the gentleman's armament, probably. When these big men go to a conference to fight for peace it is just as well to have all comers searched at the door for deadly weapons.

Lots of Ideas
Opening the conference, representatives of various nations jumped into the forum with their ideas, each anxious to be first in the war to end war. Turkey wanted to create a super-state, big enough to bring all the rest of the nations into the woodshed and turn them over the knee of punishment. Holland wanted to do away with floating mines because they knocked holes in her ships. One nation wants to prohibit the use of airplanes for military purposes; another would prohibit the use of poisonous gas and chemicals. As far as we read nobody has suggested doing away with guns and bayonets. Perhaps those old traditions whereby we are just punctured by a bullet or slit by a bayonet are the best after all. We'd better stick to the dear old-fashioned customs of our fathers.

The Red Napoleon
Some of us, reading the dispatches of Floyd Gibbons from the Shanghai sector, recall his fascinating and thrilling story, "The Red Napoleon," published some months ago. And in recalling, we are prone to parallel the present threats of a great war with the thread of the Gibbons narrative. If you have not read "The Red Napoleon," now is a good time to do so. The observer guarantees both interest and thrill.

Scraps of Paper
Recalling the scraps of paper into which the solemn treaties of world nations were reduced by the great war, we wonder just what good these various proposals will do. How many of the solemn agreements which may be entered into at the League of Nations conference will be respected and carried out in case of war? We would do well to remember that all promises are void in time of war. There is no law, no rule, no morality. Only force and the fear of force are effective. If China today were a well organized, rich and powerful military nation, there would be no war in Manchuria, no threat at Shanghai and Nanking. And if ever the United States becomes weak and defenseless, the other nations will attack and subjugate her rich cities and overrun her lands. There will be no need of provocation or excuse. Those that need will take ruthlessly and relentlessly. It has been so through all history and will continue so until the millennium.

Possible Benefits
That benefits may come from the disarmament conference is, of course, true. The efforts which are being made there may result in great good. This will be in the way of agreements limiting the expenditures for armament and in curtailment of naval building programs. One nation can promise to refrain from building certain ships if another will do the same. Thus the load of taxation may be lifted from the necks of suffering peoples. But as far as doing away with war—it just simply can't be done as long as the world is peopled with a diversity of races with human qualities.

Bombing St. Peters
Now they are planting bombs in St. Peters at Rome. A queer way of keeping the Lenten season sacred. Even in the sacredness of religion we find the seeds of warfare. It is difficult to know why anyone should wish to ruin that noblest of all the great cathedrals of the world or blow the Pope out of bed. But humans are human. Aside from a few newspaper folks and "thee and me," we are all a little
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