Two outstanding leaders the London Conference had last week: one positive, the other negative.
Negative Stimson. An engineer knows that the negative pole of a storage battery is exactly as useful as the positive. Growing satisfaction was evident at the White House as, day after day, the chief of the U. S. delegation in London did nothing un-negative.
For example, at the first plenary session of the conference, held at St. James's palace in the drawing-room of one of the most negative British sovereigns who ever reigned, Queen Anne, the address of Secretary of State Henry Lewis Stimson was kept in the spirit of his opening sentence:
"After careful consideration and consultation with my colleagues I have decided not to make any statement today as to the naval requirements of America."
In these words there was the leadership of a field marshal who sits firmly down and waits for the four opposing armies to make some misstep against his impregnable position. In a sense the U. S. position is impregnable. "Our requirements," said Mr. Stimson, continuing his remarks, "are well understood. They have been cheerfully recognized by the nation which is our host and which has, through its Prime Minister, agreed with us that equality in naval power between us is a basis upon which we can best promote the beneficent purposes of this conference."
Headlines in the New York Herald Tribune, closest news organ to the Hoover administration, after its correspondent had talked with the President:
CAUTIOUS TREND
OF NAVAL PARLEY
PLEASES CAPITAL
PRESIDENT GRATIFIED THAT NO PRECIPITATE ACTION CONFUSES
EARLY SESSIONS
Washington fears of broad pronouncements vanish
It was January last week and Messrs. Hoover and Stimson were understood, respectively in Washington and London, to be sanguine that the conference may be crowned with success in May or June.
Limping visibly, Ambassador Charles Gates Dawes emerged from one of the many sessions at St. James's palace, answered correspondents who had rudely asked: "What's the matter with you? Why the limp?"
"Diplomacy," replied General Dawes, "isn't too hard on the brain, but it's hell on the feet!"
Newsmen also asked Rear Admiral Moffatt, chief adviser on naval aviation to the U. S. delegation, why he was in mufti, why he had bought a shiny new silk hat.
"I was ordered to buy it," said Admiral Moffatt. "The order was mandatory. I expect I shall throw the thing overboard on the boat home."