The Milwaukee Leader

It's for Our Own Good

There is nothing much more pleasant than that warm glow of satisfied virtue that comes when you feel that you are doing a highly righteous and praiseworthy act which you could very easily have avoided if you hadn't been so upright.

Such a feeling, it is apparent, is stealing over the American nation today as President Hoover and Premier MacDonald prepare to hold their conference on the reduction of naval armaments.

The average American seems to be convinced that this conference is being held simply because this nation is so high-minded, idealistic and self-sacrificing that it can't help giving its own selfish interests a kick in the pants for the sake of the rest of the world.

It's comforting to be able to feel that way. It's nice to be able to say, "Look what we did in 1921-voluntarily cut our naval building program when there was nobody on earth that could have matched us if we'd gone ahead with it. Now we're doing it again--cutting down our armaments when it's the other fellow that needs it more than we do."

Yes, that's very soothing.

It would be even more soothing if it were true.

America's action at the 1921 conference was very fine, indeed; but did you know that if that conference had not been held this country would very probably have been involved in a war with Japan in another 12 months or so?

That, at any rate, is the opinion of competent diplomats. Slashing our naval program then was nothing more than a very practical means of averting trouble.

The situation is a good deal the same today. War isn't as imminent now as it was then, of course; but there's trouble in the air, and the Hoover-MacDonald conference is a level-headed means of getting it out of the way.

Milton Bronner, European correspondent for this paper, recently presented an able series of articles analyzing the European situation. He presented some quite obvious and unpleasant facts.

Bronner showed that Uncle Sam, quite literally, hasn't a real friend overseas. He showed that there is an extremely ominous mixture of suspicion, jealousy and downright hatred brewing against us on the other side of the Atlantic. In every capital the United States is viewed with marked distrust.

That being the case, Bronner demonstrates clearly that a naval agreement with England is nothing more or less than ordinary, unexalted common sense on our part.

In other words, it is highly important to us, as well as to the British, that President Hoover and Premier MacDonald reach an understanding. In agreeing to cut down our fleet we shall not be making a fine, self-sacrificing gesture; we shall simply be serving our own best interests.

It would be a good thing if we could recognize that fact. Our pose of idealistic altruism doesn't quite square with the facts.-The Capital Times.