ARTHUR BALFOUR
The results of the Washington conference were substantial. They put off war where none was threatening. Perhaps in the longer future they will be seen to be no more than a prolongation of the intent of the Versailles treaty, confirming the dichotomy of powers which that instrument created. Germany, Russia, and China were treated as outsiders in both conferences.
But the great a + b = c of last winter left peace where there is war still unwritten. The problem which "humanity" posed to Mr. Hughes is as yet unattempted. It is as exigent as ever. Immensely plausible as he is, events have a way of overtaking him. Remembering what happened on election night in 1916, I think one cannot sum him up better than by saying that he has the habit of always being elected in the early returns. As in the case of the lightning calculator, after you have recovered from your first surprise at his mental exhibition you are inclined to ask, "But what is the good of it all?"
The two most important advisers to the President in the existing Cabinet are Mr. Hughes and Mr. Hoover. The limitations of the Secretary of State are the limitations of a legalistic mind. The limitations of Mr. Hoover are the limitations of a scientific mind. Men, considered politically, do not behave like mathematical factors nor like chemical elements.
Someone asked Mr. Hoover recently why he sent corn to Russia instead of wheat. "Because," replied the Secretary of Commerce without a moment's hesitation, "for one dollar I can buy so many calories"—carrying it out to the third decimal place—"in corn, and only so many"—again to the third decimal place—"in wheat. I get about twice as many in corn as in wheat."
Mr. Hoover is at his best in feeding a famished population. He then has men where he wants them—I say this without meaning to reflect upon Mr. Hoover's humanitarian impulses; perhaps I should better say he then has men where for the free operation of his scientific mind he requires to have them. For in a famine men become mere chemical retorts. You pour into them a certain number of calories. Oxidization produces a certain energy. And the exact energy necessary to sustain life is calculable.
In a famine men cease to be individuals. They can not say, "I never ate corn. I do not know how to cook corn. I do not like corn." They behave in perfectly calculable ways. So many calories, oxidization; so much energy.
Conceive a society in which results were always calculable: so many men, so much fuel, so much consequent horsepower, and Mr. Hoover would make for it an admirable benevolent dictator; for he is benevolent. If Bolshevism at its most complete exemplification had been a success and become the order of the world, Mr. Hoover might have made a great head of a state; with labor conscripted and food conscripted, all you would have to do would be to apply the food, counted in calories, to the labor, and production in a readily estimable quantity would ensue. I am not trying to suggest that this represents Mr. Hoover's ideal of society; it surely does not. I am only saying that this is the kind of society in which Mr. Hoover would develop his fullest utility.