Despite two glaring instances of Congressional insularity that are
at present in our minds――passage of the Japanese Exclusion Act and
two years’ delay in taking up the World Court――in the long run and
haltingly a democratic government obeys the people’s will. If we want
international law and order in place of war and chaos, we must say so
and keep saying so.
How is public opinion created? How was Mr. Coolidge elected president?
Talk, talk, talk and talk, talk, talk. Not, as it happens in this
instance, by Mr. Coolidge but by those who wanted him for president.
It was talk in the press and talk from the soapbox and talk in the
circles in which one moved, talk with convincing earnestness, talk with
arguments that reached down to the motives on which men really act.
Similarly in furthering the only policy that can save our country
and our civilization from being ruined by another war, we must talk,
talk, talk and talk, talk, talk――in the press, from the pulpit, in
the schoolroom, in books, from the billboards, in public meetings,
and through the programs of club and lodge and grange. We must work
as men in haste, remembering that we are sure only of this “period of
exhaustion,” in which to build machinery and world opinion, both strong
enough to bear incredible strain. It will be only as by the skin of our
teeth that the world will get by some of the danger corners that we all
can see must be passed.
Why America particularly? Because what is whispered in America today
echoes and re-echoes around the world.