Disarmament, or rather limitation of armament, had become a policy almost universally favored among Americans. There was something of religious fervor in the spirit with which the Americans opened the conference. The program proposed by Secretary Hughes meant relief from taxation, of course. But to the man in the street it signified far more than that. Looking at the problem of both land and sea armaments from a more academic standpoint than the other Powers could afford to adopt, the American people believed that the naval holiday was the first step toward the genuine reëstablishment of peace and good will among nations. They were taken somewhat aback when it developed during the conference that the agreement limiting armaments would have to be accompanied by other agreements that appealed less to the imagination and awakened again the fear of foreign entanglements. But in order to secure the first agreement the Senate felt that it did not dare to refuse to ratify a four-power treaty, binding the principal Pacific powers to respect one another’s Pacific territories.[25] When the conference finished its work at the beginning of February, there was dissatisfaction in many quarters in America. Some felt that the naval holiday should have included sweeping reductions and a fixed ratio in other kinds of naval craft than capital ships. Others argued that the conference, before breaking up, should have bound the participating powers to reassemble in the near future to consider land armaments. All believed that the old principles of world politics were too much in evidence in the treatment of China. But none was able to contest the statement of President Harding that the Washington Conference was epoch-making in that it marked the beginning, and a distinct step forward, on the path toward a new method in putting an end to competitive armaments.