The times-news. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1927-current, 1938-09-02
NEWSPAPERS OPINIONS
THE BACKWARD LOOK

The presidential charge against Sen. Ed Smith
of South Carolina is to the effect that he looks
backward
There is sense in which, instead of being an
Indictment such is the statement of eulogy.
To have backward perspective is Vital
When one is looking in that direction, one can
see and appreciate the rock out Of which We are
hewn."
One can keep in constant view the signposts and
the landmarks along the way has come.
One can witness the warnings and adnonitlons
of history the wrecks of those individuals and ma
tons who have disregarded its instructions and the
rewards of those who have hOnored and obeyed
historys truth.
One can look over into the pits, when one IS
looking backward, into which governments have
fallen because they unwiSely chaperoned, ana
ulysses which were avoided because they were
soundly guided.
One can view the bloody spots which mark the
sites where the worlds most gruesome battles nave
been fought in the name of human progress against
the forces Of reaction mslabeIed as liberals.
One can visualize the sufferngs of the martyrs
whose bodies were wrapped III flames for the cause
Of human freedom.
One can re-create the passions of the patriots,
when the look is backward patriots who counted
all things lost that they might win for their peoples
the liberties for which they were born to enjoy.
One can sense the oppression and tyrannies
heaped upon the human by the iron foot Of
the conqueror and despoiler who served only their
own lustful ends.
One can all the more appreciate the high pur-
poses of the Founding Fathers of the American
Republic when they framed Constitution designed
to protect forevermore the instructive individual
rights Of free people.
One can fight all the harder when ones view
is backward over the history of this nation for so
years for those principles of government that he
centric and irremovable from the heart of the
simple democracieS.
Yes, there's virtue in looking backward.
Then it is that principles which were honored
Yesterday become changeless today no matter what
sophstries and superfciaites may be imported Tor
experimentation in this republic.
Then, too, it is that the American Constitution
comes to be regarded sacred only for the sound
ness of its principles.
Looking backward one views u homey and hon
est ancestry of men and women who set out upon
the adventure of life empty-handed and empty
pocketed but full-hearted and full-faithed in the
doctrine of their right to take their talents, under
the protecting folds of the Stars and Stripes, and
the direction Of working out their own individual
salvation.
Looking backward Il vast panorama OF poor put
ambitions forebears untolds as they grimy planted
themselves amid envirOns of impoverishment ana
penury in the infant days of this republic, settling
in the wildernesses erecting for themselves hutS
and novels with their hands, sleeping on floors
of dirt and eating out of plates made of wood and
thus taking life in such stride laid the foundations
of a civilization of progress and self-adVenture.
Looking backward does get "a more intimate
appreciation of the fortitude of the fathers OF
America who suffered the tragedies of privation
and poverty but bore their own burdens, made
their own sorry and bare living from their own
industrious hands, and never carried their case to
Washington.
To be sure the backward look is an intelligent
look.
Perhaps we would be better off in this country
with more statesmen in public life who were not
quite 50 forward-ookine, and more backward IN
their Observation-Disclosures Observer