TIIE SUNDAY OltEGOXlAX. PORTLAND. NOVEMBER 6. 1921
5
H. G. WELLS VISIONS
British Writer at Arms Con
ference With Purpose.
PROPHET ALSO PROMOTER
Sullivan Contrasts Ideas of Cru
sader and Practical Statesmen
and Predicts Disappointment.
BV MARK SfLLIVAN.
Copyrlht. J St J 1 . by th. New York Evening
l"ct. Inc.. Published by Arrmsement.)
WASHINGTON. D. C, Nov. 5. (Spe
cial.) H. O. Wells has come to Wash
ington to report the conference, and
on his arrival has given out an inter
view reflecting his Ideas of what Is
going to happen here. Mr. Wells' idea
of whut ought to be the outcome of
the conference and what, in his ex
pectation, is going to be the outcome
are so different from what is planned
by those who have official control of
the conference that the contrast af
fords an opportunity to make some
things clear.
It is Just possible that something
approximately what Mr. Wells antici
pates may happen. Mr. We'.'.s" ideas
are in the form of very advanced al
truism, and there is throughout
America an amount of unco-ordinated
spirituality which is constantly in
creasing and which, If Mr. Wells
should succeed In focusing it, might
produce results beyond what is
contemplated by Mr. Harding, Mr.
Hughes and the others who are to
compose the conference.
Of course. Mr. Wells is not really
going to "report" the conference. It
would be a most uneconomical use
of genius for him to do so. Mr. Wells
has a body of ideas about the future
relations of the nations with each
other which he believes in with ex
alted ardor. He also has a body of
readers who compose a following
probably larger than is possessed
by any other English or American
writer. Obviously, what Mr. Wells Is
going to do is to use the conference
as a pulpit from which to preach
these Ideas.
Well's Presence Important.
In this role th.e presence of H. G.
Wells outside of the conference doors
Is fully as Important as the presence
of any one statesman who Is going
to be inside. Mr. Wells is a very
great man. To say that he is the
greatest of living writers of English
is. perhaps, a loose and indolent way
of describing him: but It is a descrip
tion with which those who agree far
outnumber those who disagree. To
sa ythat Mr. Wells is In Washington
to report what is going to be said and
done by, let us say, Arthur Balfour,
would reflect a conspicuous defect in
the sense of relative values. A more
accurate picture of the true propor
tion of things would be to have Mr.
Balfour acting as a stenographer to
Mr. Wells.
It Is, of course, difficult to compare
Mr. Wells, who comes chiefly from
the world of literature, with the
members of the conference, who come
from the world of statesmanship. It
would be like comparing Shakespeare
with Lord Coke, a venerable old
statesman who cut a considerable
figure in Shakespeare's day, but is
not now as much heard of as Shake
speare Is. If there were any common
yardstick by which to do the meas
uring, it would be safe to say that
Mr. Wells is a bigger man than nine
tenths of the members of the confer
ence combined. If anyone were going
out to buy a basket of wisdom, he
probably would go to Mr. Wells' shop
before he would go to the shop of any
one of the delegates, or, perhaps, of
all of them combined.
Prophet Also Promoter.
If you wanted to be told; what sort
of world this Is going to be In, let us
say, the year 2000. you would take
Air. Wells' prophetic vision as far
more dependable than that of Mr.
Harding, or Mr. Hughes, or Mr. Root,
or all the American delegation com
bined. This la meant literally and
not figuratively. Any person familiar
with what Mr. Wells has done at
various times during the last 25 years
will understand what Is meant, and
will support the comparison.
Now, t happens that Mr. Wells has
a perfectly definite vision of what the
world ultimately ought to be, and is
going to be. He not only pictures It
as a prophet, but he works to bring
it, about with a seal as great as that
of any evangelist, and with an ef
fectiveness far beyond that of most
evangelists The thing that I aim to
do here Is" to point out what Mr.
Wells vision Is, and also Just how
much of that vision he expects to see
accomplished at the coming confer
ence. Having pointed that out. I then
want to state Just what Mr. Hughes
and Mr. Root expect to do at the
coming conference, and to show what
miles and leagues and worlds of
distance there is between what Mr.
Wells expects and what Mr. Hughes
and the others expect.
Mr. Wells' vision is that of a uni
fied) world, devoted to spiritual In
stead of selfish purposes. He believes
In this vision with passionate earn
eatness and writes about It with ex
alted and appealing inspiration. In
one of his recent books, "The Undy
ing Fire." he makes one of his char
acters describe this future world in
words as exalted as the best spiritual
writing In the English language.
Selflabneas Defeats Life.
"In this present world," he says,
"men live to themselves; having their
lives, they lose them. In the world
that are seeking to make they will
give themselves to the God) of man
kind, and so they will live indeed
They will as a matter of course
change their Institutions and their
methods so that all men may be used
to the best effect, in the common
work of mankind. They will take
this little planet which has been torn
!nfj shreds of possessions and make
it again one garden.
"The spirit of God in man Is crying
out In our hearts to save us from
these blind alleys of selfishness, dark
ness, cruelty and pain in which our
rare must die; he is crying for the
high road which Is salvation; he Is
commanding the organised unity of
mankind.
"when men cease their internecine'
war. then and then alone can the i
race swet p forward. The race will
grow In power and beauty swiftly, in
eaih generation. All this world will
man make a garden for himself."
Now there Isn't a human being who
doesn't wish this vision to come about
this vision of a world in which
man takes the enormous energy he
now wastes In wars and devotes It to
concjuerlng diseases, the weeds and
all other impediments that make the
present a Job's world for most of the
human race.
Worn State Vlaloned.
But when Mr. Wells. In another of
his recent books, takes up the actual
steps which must compose the first
progress toward an ideal world, be
marches head on against a formidable
mass of prejudices and Inherited con
victions. He says the first thins: to
make cleavages among men. He says
we must get rid of national boundary
lines; we must throw off national
patriotisms; we must achieve a com
mon language, a single .world-wide
currency, and the like. Mr. Wells'
attitude toward the league of nations
Is one of disapproval, but the rea
sons for his disapproval are not the
same of Hiram Johnson's, for exam
ple. Mr. Wells disapproves of the
league of nations, not because It goes
oo far, but because it doesn't go far
enough. He says:
"I would have this idea of a human
unity put before peoples' minds in
the form of a world state and not In
the form of a league of nations." He
wants a "world law"; he wants
"world unity," one "world rule."
He says "the task before manknid Is
to substitute the one Idea of an over,
rding world commonweal for the
multitudinous ideas of little common
weals that prevail everywhere today.
The world perishes for the want of
a common political Idea. It is still
quite possible to give the world this
common idea, the idea of a federal
world state. We cannot help but
set about doing it."
Christian Vnlty Cited.
To all objectors Mr. Wells says this
must be done and can be done. . He
instances the "spread of Christianity
in western Europe, which In a few
centuries changed the whole of west
ern Europe from the wild confusion
of warring tribes that succeeded the
breakdown of the Roman empire into
the unity of Christendom, into a
community with such an idea of Unity
that it could be roused from end to
end by the common idea of the cru
sades.
That is what Mr. Wells not only
pleads for but expects. He antici
pates it with as much confidence as
in 1895 he anticipated the airplane.
And it must be remembered' that Mr.
Wells Is. by education and bent of
mind, fundamentally a man of sci
ence. His anticipation of the air
plane was but one of many prophecies
which give him not merely literary
standing but solid scientific backing
as a man of vision in the physical as
well as in the spiritual world.
Mr. Wells, it will be observed, looks
forward to something which is a com
bination of the crusades, the French
revolution and the spread of Chris
tianity over western Europe, all
rolled Into one and compressed into
a few years. Not only does Mr. Wells
regard' this vision of his as an ulti
mate thing; he actually expects this
coming conference here In Washing
ton during this present month of
November to go a long way toward
achieving It. In an interview he
gave out the day he arrived in Amer
ica he said: "If the conference goes
on It is bound to develop into some
sort of a world control, not only of
Internationa, politics, but of finan
cial and economic questions that will
be handled on a world basis."
Something May Happen.
Now, if Mr. Wells is going to sit
on the doorstep of the conference
room and talk like this. Imagine what
President Harding and the rest of the
American delegation will do. They
will unite in one wild yell of the
irreconcilable senators' slogan. Tbey
will cry "superstate" and order the
Janitor to bar the door and put ma
chine guns at every window. It is
faintly within the possibilities that
Mr. Wells may. In the language of
the day, "start something." There
are a lot of folks In the United States
who have it in them to be power
fully moved by the kind of things
Mr. Wells talks about. Most of us
In America are potential crusaders
Mr. Wells may start up again that
flaming- emotion which enlisted fully
seven-eighths of America behind the
league of nations, when the idea of
that institution first burst upon -the
world, and before Mr. Wilson made
his mistakes, and before the Irrecon
cilable senators got out their toma
hawks and went on the warpath.
Of course, the things which Presi
dent Harding and Mr. Hughes and all
the others expect to do at the com
ing conference' have practically noth
ing in common with the vision that
Mr. Wells paints. What Mr. Harding
and Mr. Hughes expect to do is at
this moment specifically and con
cretely written down on a sheet of
paper. It is called the "agenda" and
It includes Just two main things,
namely, a reduction of armaments
and an agreement about certain far
eastern questions. The public doesn't
generally realize how definitely and
how unchangeably limited the official
purpose of the coming conference is.
Idealism Growing; Aa-aln.
What I have said in this article is
not merely a contrast between the
point of view of Mr. Wells and that
of Mr. Harding and Mr. Hughes and
the other statesmen who compose the
conference. It is a contrast between
two schools of thought. The school
of Mr. Harding and Mr. Hughes wants
to make Just one short and extremely
careful etep toward the millennium,
namely, the limitation of armament.
The school pf Mr. Wells and his fol
lowers wants to take a quick run and
a long Jump and land right in the
middle of the millennium.
At the present moment It is a nlne-to-one
probability that Mr. Harding
and Mr. Hughes will be able to keep
the conference right where they want
It kept. The conference is framed
up to be "strictly hard-boiled" and to
consider absolutely nothing except
what is on the agenda. But the
school that believes in Mr. Wells, the
school that regards Mr. Wilson as
literally a prophet and a martyr, in
the biblical sense, the school that
provided the idealism that was back
of the league of nations. Is still with
us and ia being warmed up again.
There is a lot of spiritual lightning in
the atmosphere, and It tends to come
together. If the right leadership
comes along, it is capable of doing
something very big. There is a lot
of praying directed at the confer
ence, and anybody who doubts that
prayer can accomplish things has al
lowed cynicism to blind his ordinary
powers of observation.
To say just what is the process
through which prayer brings things
sbout would Involve us in meta
physical and theological argument,
but of the central truth there can be
no doubt. Nevertheless, the over
whelming chances are that the
ptop Jioto Jfor
Cfjristmas
Me
mm
title early to talk of Christmas,
should be selected a little in
It may seem a
but some gifts
advance.
Diamonds, Watches and Jewelry or some special
article you want to have made to order can be
chosen now to best advantage. A small deposit
'will hold them until later.
See my stock and compare prices before you pur
chase elsewhere. It will be to our mutual benefit.
Credit Accommodations
without extra charge. '
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statesmen who have their grip on the
conierence win oe aDie to Keep jl
where they want it kept. Mr. Wells,
in his interview the other day, said
he would remain at the conference as
1 , - .4 I ln.,..llniT Th
probability I say it With sincere re
gret is that Mr. wells wju una me
f.r.r. Tint nnlv 11 n i n t m rent I n flr hut
acutely discouraging, within a very
few weeks.
Highway to Open Tomorrow.
ABERDEEN, Wash., Nov. 5. (Spe
cial.) Motor traffic in Grays, Harbor
county will be greatly facilitated
Monday when two vital improvements
will be effective. These are the open
ing of the new section of the Olympic
hiehwav between Aberdeen city limits
and the Grays Harbor Country club,
and the operation of the ludlow
Island ferry, which will allow the re
sumption of automobile traffic , to
Westport and other south beach
points. These points have'been cut
off except by boat from the harbor
cities since October It. The Olympla
h'ghway stretch was to have been
opened November 1 but was delayed
by a small washout.
Masons Will Hold Memorial.
HOOD RIVER, Or.. Nov. 5. (Spe
cial.) The Hood River iMasonic lodge
next Thursday night will celebrate
Tleman night in honor of the late
Andrew H. Tieman, pioneer Mount
Hood rancher, who left his entire for
tune to build the local Masonic
temple. Following a dinner at 6:30,
Masons of the valley and neighbor
ing points will assemble for a me
morial programme.
New School Soon to Open.
ABERDEEN, Wash.. Nov. 6. (Spe
cial.) School will start at the new
schoolhouse, completed recently In
the upper end of school district No.
305 in Mason county, as soon as the
furniture can be Installed. The school
will accommodate children from the
upper district and a few from the
Beevllle district, who live too far
away to attend the Beeville school.
Fingers Badly Mutilated.
""COTTAGE GROVE. Or., Nov. 5.
(Special.) Miss Mary Layng suffered
two badly cut .fingers when the han
dle of the ax she was handling struck
the wall, causing- the handle to strike
her a smart blow over the head, while
the blade fell on her hand and came
near amputating the fingers. It was
found that the ligaments had not been
severed.
Furniture Sold for Liquor.
SALEM, Or., Nov. '5. (Special.)
Mrs. Phllomene Chenette. in a divorce
action tried in the circuit court here
today, alleged" that while she was liv
ing in St. Johns, Portland, her hus
band. Joe Chenette. disposed of her
furniture in order to obtain money to
purchase liquor. A decree was award
ed to Mrs Chenette.
Read The Oregonian classified ads.
DGLLflfl HITS 240 MARKS
FURTHER SLUMP OF GERMAN
MONEY IS PREDICTED.
Financial Collapse Shows New
Signs of Domestic Peril of
Serious Import.
BERLIN-, Nov. 5. (Special Cable.)
The dollar has hit 240 marks. It is
expected the marks will get even
worse as the bourse within Germany
reacts to the lack of confidence
abroad.
The present drop was inevitable,
with the Upper Sllesian decision the
Germans lost confidence in their own
money, which is reacting now on the
bourse and abroad, where billions of
marks have been accumulated
through purchases of foreign ex
change for reparations payments.
The Reichsbank is helpless. It
cannot check the fall by throwing a
mass of foreign money on the bourse
at bad moments, because the Reichs
bank Itself is cleaned out by repara
tions payments.
The first signs of demoralization
coming from depreciated currency are
seen in people rushing to the stores
before prices rise, so that the shops
are sometimes forced to close for an
.our at a time to refill their shelves.
The whole atmosphere is shaky, the
general feeling being that Germany
is facincr a disaster unless all the I
Overcoats that make you glad that it:s Winter!
MEN YOUNG MEN here, indeed, is Overcoat Headquarters! Here is an assemblage of fabric
and fashion that will gladden your eyes! Here.is the most dignified here is the most worthy
here is the most compelling exhibit of Overcoats that you will see. Let us call it a Men's Overcoat
Exposition it is worthy of that high title, for it comprises the best from loom and tailor the world
over! - ,
Overcoats and Great-coats $25 to $80
13 T? TVT QPT T T TVT Leadin Clothier
S3 Ej IN O Ej JL 1 IN JT Morrison at Fourth
Sole Portland Agent for Highland Heather Overcoats
parties In the coalition government
and industry quicKiy gei is"i
mutual support.
The people's party, which
tanding out, baa at last shown an
4...i,iT.Hinir nr thit seriousness of
the situation by agreeing to enter the
Prussian cabinet in an all-party
coalition. To this event the Indepen-
ent socialists agree.
- n.irf .ten uttur the Prussian
cabinet is established will be to build
.imiiir all-nan v coalition under the
national government. This step a
further fall of the mark is likely to
hasten.
Young Woman Released.
SALEM. Or, Nov. 5. (Special.)
Mrs. Violet Groshong, 17. who was
arrested here recently charged with
pointing a loaded gun at her younger
sister, today was dismissed from cub-
today following a preliminary hear
ing In the justice court. The com
plaint resulting in Mrs. Groshong's
arrest was signed by her father. Mrs.
Groshong alleged that she was not
armed, but that her arrest was due
to her father's, inability to prevent
her marriage.
bia heights community tHls after
noon. Eighteen have enrolled for the
class, which is Inwtrurted by MiNS
Marian Adams, a trained nurse. The
class is held in the Columbia Heights
m-hool.
Silverton Smothers Stayton.
SILVERTON'. Or., Nov. 5. (Special.)
The Stayton high school football
team met the Silverton high team on
the Silver Falls grounds at Silverton
yesterday afternoon. The score was
4S to 0 In favor of Silverton.
Nurses' Class Organized.
KELSO, Wash., Nov. 5. (Special.)
The Cowlitz Wahkiakum chapter
of the American Red Cross organized
a nurses' traininer class in the Colum-
CoroNA
The Personal Writing Machine
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