Non-fiction: Address at the Washington Conference on Limitation of Armament

Occasion and Purpose
Delivered on November 12, 1921, at the opening of the Washington Conference on the Limitation of Armament, President Warren G. Harding’s address welcomed delegations from major naval and Pacific powers to a forum intended to curb naval competition and address Far Eastern tensions. Coming one day after the Armistice Day commemoration and the burial of the Unknown Soldier, the speech wove recent mourning into a call to transform loss into policy. Harding framed the conference as a practical, morally grounded effort to reduce the burdens of militarism and avert a renewed arms race that threatened prosperity and stability worldwide.

Historical Context
Harding spoke to publics still paying the human and financial costs of the First World War. Budgets strained under military outlays, taxation hampered recovery, and distrust of secret diplomacy lingered. The United States had rejected the League of Nations but was not withdrawing from world affairs. The conference embodied an alternative: limited, focused agreements achievable through frank negotiation, transparency, and reciprocity. Harding positioned Washington as host not to arbitrate hegemony but to convene a solution that would align national security with international restraint.

Core Appeals
The address pivots on three linked appeals. First, the moral imperative: the war’s sacrifices demanded a new ordering of international relations that would reduce the likelihood of catastrophe. Second, the economic argument: unchecked armament was a deadweight on recovery, diverting labor and capital from productive uses and taxing citizens who wanted relief. Third, the strategic logic: security built on competitive armament was illusory and unstable; enduring safety required mutual confidence, measurable limits, and predictable behavior among maritime powers.

Programmatic Aims
While leaving space for detailed proposals by American diplomats, Harding sketched the agenda. He urged a concrete limitation of naval armaments, especially capital ships, to halt rivalry on the seas. He endorsed clear, public understandings rather than secret undertakings, inviting scrutiny as a safeguard against miscalculation. He supported addressing Far Eastern questions in tandem with naval limitation, signaling respect for China’s sovereignty and open access to markets, and pressing for a framework that would reduce friction, prevent spheres of exclusive control, and stabilize the Pacific.

American Position
Harding emphasized that the United States sought no territorial aggrandizement and no special privilege inconsistent with the rights of others. He presented American leadership as example rather than domination, willing to match restraint with restraint and to meet parity with parity where appropriate. The United States, he implied, would accept limitations that preserved legitimate defense while lowering the temperature of rivalry, provided others did likewise and commitments were balanced, intelligible, and enforceable.

Tone and Method
The speech balanced idealism with administrative clarity. Harding urged candor among delegates and warned against empty eloquence, insisting that the effort be judged by tangible results. He invited a spirit of common service rather than national display, casting cooperation as both moral duty and sound governance. The rhetoric appealed to public opinion, which he portrayed as impatient with grandstanding and eager for relief, thereby binding negotiators to the expectations of their peoples.

Stakes and Expectations
Harding closed by merging memory and mandate: the losses of the recent war were not merely to be honored, but to be redeemed through policy that reduced the chance of repetition. He set an expectation of measurable, early progress, signaling that temporary pauses or vague assurances would not suffice. The address thus served as a charter for the conference, defining success as a verifiable reduction in naval competition and a more orderly Pacific, achieved through frank, reciprocal, and public agreements that aligned national safety with international restraint.