Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-03-06
RUPERT HUGHES In PLEA
FOR TRUTH ABOUT PAST
sCood Old Days. Assailed by Author,
Who Claims Facts Show They We're
No Better Than Modern Days.

will be disillusioned about our great
! if we told the truth about them
| always?"
The answer is that ] am not writ
| ing for children. / don't advocate
that all truth about historical per-
! sonageS should go into text books for
grammer school children. But l do
believe that adults should stand the
truth. In heavens name, can no.
body in this country write anything
for grown people? Must children be
the standard for ,everything?"
And you think, Mr., Hughes, that
the world will be very much bene-
flied by having the cold truth told
about our heroes of the past? Can
you point out to me definitely just
! how the world will be benefited? OF
| course. | can see how some people
| love truth just for its own sake. But
are there any great social advantages
to be derived from telling the truth
about great men-henefits that Will
help society to progress?"
Every bit of progress the world
| has made has been on foundations of
truth. 1t has been lies that have held
progress back. SO long as people
thought the earth was fiat mariners
| hesitated to explore. So long as peo-
pie believed in signs and omens be
| fore embarking on a business venture
! commerce was delayed. So long as
| people were afraid to think and to
| investigate we had the dark ages
So long as people have feared truth
| they have remained stagnant or in a
state of degra dation. 1t is truth that
has given us the wonders Of the mod
ern world.
Worship of Past Is Check.
IF worshiping the past had pre-
vailed, the future would not have pro.
duced progress. Only as we cut away
from the past and try to improve it
do we get ahead. In all ages and in
all times the test of progress has
| been the ability of a people to break
with the past. When we turn our
eyes to the past, we never look ahead;
and l say that one of the most potent
forces holding back more progress is
our worship of the past today. We
must stick by the truth wherever we
find it, or relapse into a coma'of blind
faith and stagnation. We must fight
the ever-preSent tendency to think
that the past alone has virtue or he
roes and that our times are degen-
erate-well worthy of another heaV-
emily food
We turn to our forefathers and orr
forefatherS turn to their forefatherS
for real righteousness, and finally we
arrive at a totem pole with human
sacrifices, sticks and stone for gods
and the height of barbarism. This
blind worship of the past robs us of
the optimism necessary to move for
ward to greater attitudes of achieve
ment---breeds the intolerance that
blights new ideas and which has been
accountable for all religious and So
cial persecution.
when we have corruption in gov
eminent in our day we promptly call
on all right-living people to contem-
plate with joy the dear old days of
Washington. when politicians were
saints and aldermen We're pillars of
the church. And yet Washington
time knew OF the most tremendous
corruption in public life. Washing
tons soldiers at Valley Forge went
barefooted because the shoe manufac-
turers had taken the money for the
shoes and then failed to deliver them.
Blinded by Old Days.
I'VE get to thinking so much about
the good old days that we begin to
live in them mentally. We think our
times so corrupt that reform is impos-
sible. Instead of realizing that cor
ruption has always been with us and
that the good old days were worse
than ours, and getting up like men to
tackle the evils of our times, we ac-
cept them as incurable in the pessi-
mistic comparison that we make of
them with the good old days.
This blind worship of the past dis
courages us. 1t is milestone about
the neck of progress. 1t must be de-
bunked If 1t is not to hold humanity
hack DnhInlxiner tho OF icry 1af
raking. 1t is a great social service,
and until it is done, and done thor
oughly-until we know that progress
is in the present or future and not in
the past--there is constantly with us
the grave possibilities of the fanati-
cism of worshiping the past that has
burned martyrs at the stake. chained
the human intellect, put letters on
progress and plunged the world into
great periods of mental, moral and
religious stagnation.
There is not an economist that does
not bemoan the business cycIe-violent
changes from prosperity to depression
and the dislocation of production of
wealth. We are making heroic at
tempts to keep the ship of production
on an even keel.
Cites Old Religious Code.
THE world is also plagued with an.
other equally vicious cycle--violent re.
versions to worship of the past, a
cessation of thought, fanatical censor
ship of anything new, dependency
with the present and the future.
These periods of dependency with
the present and a blind reversion to
worship of the past constitute our
worst social disease, for it is in this
period of dependency that progress
is most hindered and our worst follies
as human beings have been com.
mitted"
Copyright. 1927
II Gu