The Skyland post. [volume] (West Jefferson, N.C.) 193?-1988, 1942-05-21
After The War

To-Day most mlnQS are cenIeTeQ On the
job of winning this war-and that is one
of the biggest jobs that has come to any ma
ton in the history of mankind. At the
same time, many men are thinking OF that
day when the war will finally end and the
equally vast task of reconstruction must
be started. They are laying plans for this
world of the future, based on the hope that
ways can be found to make international
peace and prosperity real and permanent,
instead of temporary and illusory.
All Americans know what happened
after the last war. It was the position OF
President Wilson that this nation must &C
cept the responsibility of leadership in
world affairs, and he believed that the
League of Nations was the proper instru-
ment for the discharge of that responsible
ity For good or i'll, Mr.. Wilson could not
win the American Congress and the Amer
lean people to his side He literally burn
ed himself out on a national speaking tour
which proved to be an utter failure. This
nation was sick of internationalism and
war. 1t wanted only to mind its own bust
ness and to manage it's own affairs. It had
little interest in what went on beyond it's
borders.
Now the situation is vastly different
in many ways. The Atlantic Charter COM
mits this nation to help in the rebuilding
of all the world. The Charter, in principle,
has been almost universally approved-in-
deed, the main criticism of it is that it does
not go far enough. And, perhaps more i'm
portant still, the political opposition to the
Administration has formally placed itself
on record with a policy which is far cry
from the traditional isolationism" of yes
teryear.
At the end of the last war, the strong
est figure in the Republican party was the
able Senator Lodge, who did more than
any other man to block Congressional ap-
proval of the League of Nations. Now the
dominant figure in the party is a man
whose viewpoint is genuinely internation-
alist, Wendell Willkie 1t was Mr.. Willkie
who carried the torch at the recent meet
ing of the Republican Policy Committee,
and who succeeded in having passed reso-
lutions which almost completely embody
his ideas.
The other day Mr.. Willkie made a
speech, in which he said this: "It will be
a new idea to many Americans that the
United States in the future may need hello
from other nations But we do need help
if our ideas of personal liberty, of justice,
of equality of hope and growth and ex
pansion, are to survive. We can keep A
merica to ourselves, though I doubt if the
America we keep to ourselves would be
free But we cannot keep freedom to our
Selves If we are to have freedom, we must
share freedom . The day of vast empire
is past. The day of equal peoples is at
hand
''Let us keep that aim shining before
us like light-a light for the people of
Europe, for the people of Africa, for the
people of Asia for the people of South A
merica, and for the people of our own be-
loved land"
AS Time put it, "Seldom before had
any u. S. Leader said, in such clean, earthly
words, that the freedom on which this ma
ton was founded means freedom and dig
nifty for all people of all lands"
Precisely what we must or will do in
the future is in the laps of the gods Many
think that there will be great economic
adjustments, and we must find ways to
help other peoples attain the means as we'll
as the desire to buy part of the incredible
flood of goods that our postwar factories
will be able to produce. They think there
will be an end to thinking that peoples of
i~ofo ~