overshadowing the changes taking place in the management of the "witness" were the events leading up to the second world war (1939–45), as well as the "sturm und drang" of the war itself. not surprisingly for someone with a quaker background, calpin greeted chamberlain's diplomatic intervention at munich with enthusiasm, noting in an october 1938 editorial that “the agreement signed in munich lifts a burden almost too great to be borne by the peoples of the world”.