The times-news. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1927-current, 1933-02-23
NEWSPAPERS OPINIONS
THE GUARANTEE OF SURVIVAL

| No better guarantee of the eventual licking that
| America is going to give the times through which
Is passing is to be found than in the circumstance
that it has already lived through much of it and
keeps going.
Had some evil-eyed prophet come along in 1929
and predicted that this country would have to pass
+brouob such ordeals as have multiplied within the
last three or four years. even the most stoutheart-
cd would have thrown their hands up and said II
couldn't be DONE
America had no imagination in 1929 that would
sufficiently play upon the possibilities Of such
change in style of life and such shnkage In levels
of values as have come about.
Even the most elastic minds the best opinions,
the highest authorities united in saying that it
would be only for little while, that adjustments
wouId speedily come that a few months or year
or two at most would see the country riding again
with the same furious spirit on the galloping mar
kets.
At that time none could fOresee what radical IN
Movements were in the making, none could sense
the personal sacrifices that would be necessary for
all classes and conditions of people to make none
could decipher the strange handwriting on the wall,
none could picture the realities of what has since
happened.
concealed the future from the most far-reaching
ewes that the catastrophe could not be Adequately
measured in advance Had it been otherwise, the
volatile, emotional temper of the American people
would have grown acutely panicky and yielded IL
self without a struggle to the inevitable.
The same spirit of defeatsm would have at
tackled them that overcomes a man when, taken
sick he is told that it will be years before he gets
his health back, if ever.
Under the dread of that outlook, he gives up
at once, losing his fighting qualities, sulrenderng
his will to live, and an illness that is durable be-
comes fatal because he refuses to fight his way
through a long and tedious period of inactivity
and suffering.
Similarly, had the people of this country been
told by the expert business analysts and dagnostl-
clans that it would be anything like as long as 1t
has been, or that their experiences would be any
thing like as calamitous reality has made them,
they would have given up at once and yielded to
the final and fatal overthrOwing Of their spirit OF
self-aSsertion.
But they have lived nearly four years through
conditions unimaginable for land like America,
and are going and coming with something at least
of a normal routine. Of course within the SlenceS
and obscurities of current experience arc unwrit-
ten tragedies and multiplied instances of desolation
and restitution from which we want quickly 70
turn our eyes away, but the encouraging, stimu-
lating truth is that the country is still the move
with suggestion of its accustomed activity.
Trains are running, business houses are open,
exchanges are still transacting business farmers
are still blowing, mills are still operating, goods
are being sold the streets are filled with automo-
biles, good clothes are being worn and while there
is distress mutitudes are holding with grim
and relentless determination to see this thing
through.
Nothing is more stimulating of hope in eventual
recovery at full tide than this spirit with the col
lateral fact that what we have survived can be still
further overcome
The circumstance that four years of punishment
has not totally broken down the spirit of America
stands prophetic that from here out, be it for
little while OF long, the people of this country have
the resources and the reserves of intelligence OF
character and of resouteness of spirit to stay in
there and fght-Charlotte Observer.