American Agriculturist 
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“Agriculture is the Most Healthful, Most Useful and Most Noble Employment of Man ”—Washington 
Reg. U. S. Pat. Off. Established 1842 
Volume 111 For the Week Ending April 21, 1923 Number 16 
The World’s Greatest Scourge 
Lord Robert Cecil Gives Suggestions For Ending War 
« the first place, let me tender to you my 
I warmest thanks for the kindness of your 
, I welcome, for this fresh proof of the hos- 
^ pitality so world famous of the Amer¬ 
ican people. It is, I am sorry to say, the 
first time that I have had the honor of visit¬ 
ing this country, and it is a matter of pro¬ 
found pride and gratification that I should at 
last, after many disappointments, have the 
opportunity of saying something which pos¬ 
sibly may be of use and of hearing something 
which I am satisfied will be greatly to my 
profit in intercourse with a great 
audience like this. 
‘T have many reasons for grat¬ 
ification at this opportunity. I 
am not one of those who have for¬ 
gotten the comradeship of our 
two peoples in the great war. I 
shall never forget as long as I 
live that thrill of joy and hap¬ 
piness with which I heard the de¬ 
cision of the American people to 
take their part by the side of the 
Allies in that great struggle. 
In the Critical Days 
shall always remember the 
thrill with which we watched the 
American first battalion troops 
marching through London, and I 
shall never forget, nor will any 
of my fellow countrymen, the 
glorious deeds and magnificent 
services which the American 
Army rendered to that cause in 
those critical days of 1918. I 
remember well that my pleas¬ 
ure and our pleasure, I think I may say, 
was not only for the immediate assistance 
which you gave to us, but because we saw the 
dawn of a new era in which these two people 
should march together in the cause of peace. 
“There have been, as Mr. McDonald has 
already said, many disillusions and discour¬ 
agements since the armistice was signed, but 
I for one have not abandoned and will never 
abandon the hope that the great work of 
peace will ultimately be the accomplishment 
of the joint work of the American and Brit¬ 
ish people. 
“And, ladies and gentlemen, that is not the 
only instance by any means of cooperation 
between our two countries. There was just 
about a year ago completed the negotiations 
which resulted in the Washington treaties 
of disarmament. That was a very great 
thing. It was a concrete achievement in the 
cause of peace. 
1 Should be Further Limitation 
“It is quite true it applied necessarily only 
to naval matters, and was in the nature 
father of a limitation than a reduction. It 
is quite true that it applied only to capital 
ships, and there are, I should imagine, you 
^•nd I in this room who would have been very 
Slad if it could have gone even further than 
it did. 
. “For our part, for my part, I should re¬ 
joice greatly if we could have a similar 
limitation not only of capital ships, but of 
submarines and other craft also. All war¬ 
fare is cruel and horrible, but in naval war¬ 
fare I do not know anything which is more 
cruel and more horrible than the hidden 
attack of the submarine, made without 
warning, made without discrimination, an 
attack which may send to their death not 
only the troops and combatants, not only 
the men of the opposing party, but women 
and children also. 
“War is a horrible and devilish thing, 
and when nations under the stress of that 
experience, are at death grips with one 
another, when their whole future and ex¬ 
istence depended on the result of the strug¬ 
gle, it is too much to expect that any paper 
regulations will limit or humanize the means 
which they employ; and if we doubted it, 
the experience of the late war is a terrible 
warning to those who think that there is any 
means by which you can make war more 
tolerable. The only thing is to prevent its 
happening. That is the only security for 
humanity. 
Need Reduction in Army and Air 
“Ladies and gentlemen, in addition to 
n^val disarmament, perhaps more urgently 
even than that, we require ultimately dis¬ 
armament, immediate reduction in arma¬ 
ment both by land and by air. After all, in 
some ways land armaments are more de¬ 
structive to peace, more dangerous to hu¬ 
manity than armaments by sea. You can¬ 
not invade a country with a fleet. That can 
only be done by infantry. You cannot make 
—at least it is not very easy to make—at 
the life of a country by a fleet. That a sud¬ 
den and unforeseen death-stroke is the work 
of a land army attacking without provoca¬ 
tion and without warning, and if that is 
true of a land army it is even more true of 
the air. 
“You know—we all know—^that in the last 
war attacking from the air was for the first 
time made a practical tiling in warfare. We 
all remember—we at any rate on the other 
side of the Atlantic remember—what bomb¬ 
ing from the sky really meant. We have a 
vivid recollection of great explosives falling 
indiscriminately in the most populous and 
peaceful of our cities, slaughtering without 
discrimination every kind of human being, 
destroying the most harmless and the most 
helpless just as readily as those who were 
fighting in the field. What was done in the 
late war is but a pale shadow of 
what will be done in future wars. 
The Horror of Bombs 
“I am told that already bombs 
exist 100 times as powerful and 
destructive as any that were 
used in the last war, capable of 
destroying great areas, and not 
only destruction that is present, 
but poison as well. A bomb may 
be dropped from the sky on a 
great city. It may level large 
areas of it to the ground. It may 
poison the whole of the popula¬ 
tion for, it may be, hundreds of 
miles around the place where it 
fell. Nor does even that exhaust 
the possibility of air attack. 
There are some human beings 
who are planning, I am told, that 
you should be able not only to 
poison but to kill by disease the 
population by bombing from the 
air. 
“Nor will any country be safe, 
for just as the extent of the damage to be 
done has grown enormously so also has the 
range of attack, and it is no wild idea that 
in the near future it will be as easy to send 
airplanes across the Atlantic as it is now to 
send them across the -Channel. Ladies and 
gentlemen, this, if it stood alone, would be 
surely a strong call to the peoples of the 
world to set their house in order and make 
a determined effort to limit these agencies 
of destruction before it is too late. 
“In my judgment, we have come to a 
great crisis in the history of humanity. I 
agree with what my countryman, Lord Gray, 
said the other day, the nations must either 
learn or perish. That is the truth. That is 
the dilemma; that is the issue that is laid be¬ 
fore all of us, wherever we live, whatever 
our station in life, whatever our political or 
social aspirations. 
A Lesson from the Ancients 
“I had the honor of crossing the Atlantic 
in company with a number of your fellow 
citizens, who were returning from a visit 
they had paid to Egypt to see the marvelous 
discoveries which have recently been made in 
that land. And they spoke to me with great 
interest and enthusiasm of the astonishing 
degree to which the ancient civilization of 
Egypt had been perfected. There were 
others who had been to Crete and told me 
{Continued on page 365) 
/ • 
Shall We Commit Suicide? 
T hat is what Rome and all the other ancient civilizations did be¬ 
cause they insisted upon making war. This is the thought con¬ 
stantly emphasized by Lord Robert Cecil, England’s chief exponent 
for permanent peace. 
“In my judgment,” says Lord Robert, in his first speech to an 
American audience, “we have come to a great crisis in the history of 
humanity. The nations must either learn or perish. That is the 
truth; that is the dilemma; that is the issue that is laid before all 
of us, wherever we live, whatever our station in life, whatever our 
political or social aspirations.” 
Farm people especially will be interested in Lord Robert’s argu¬ 
ment for the end of war. Therefore, we take pleasure in passing all 
of his speech on to you on this page that space will allow. This will 
be followed in an early issue by a brief outline of just what the 
League of Nations is, how it is organized, and what it proposes to 
do, and later we will explain the plan for a World Court. If you like 
these simple, clear explanations of the great world problems of such 
vital importance to us all, let us know, so that we may continue them. 
—The Editor. 
