Evening star., 1942-04-09

heard that7 There Is no telling.
It's q stock phrase. Mr.. Winston
Churchill was q great user of 1t.
His magnificent talks to the British
Empire were always made q trifle
less magnificent by the use Of it.
No matter how dark things were for
Britain. Mr.. Churchill always man
aged to say, but the ultimate VIC
tory will be ours"
1t was supposed to be inspirational.
I'm quite sure it wasn't. I'm of the
opinion that it slowed down, rather
than quickened, the British war
effort. Human beings being what
they are, I'm positive that a promise
OF ultimate victory" lulled them
into q sense OF false security and
caused them to go about living the
life they thought was normal, in
stead of throwing all the normal
things overheard and adjusting
themselves TO an existence that,
while mean, made them tougher and
brought them closer to war as 1t is
fought in 1912.
Now Americans are getting the
ultimate victory" treatment. We
have heard 1t so much that we are
growing complacent. We are begin
ming TO believe that no matter how
many mistakes We make, how badly
we blunder along, ultimate VIC
tory" is a cinch.
Wouldn't 1t be a lot better for us
II that pot Of gold at the rainbow's
end, so to speak, weren't held out TO
us? Wouldn't 1t be a lot better if
we were made to feel that today's
work counted tremendously. and
that we couldn't afford to stagger
slowly along? Wouldn't we come
closer to an all-out effort II it were
impressed on us that the forces we
were lighting were so strong and
wicked that ultimate victory" de-
pended entirely on how we served
today, and that unless there was an
immediate and complete awakening
10 all the dangers, the ultimate
victory" would not be ours'
The general feeling in this country
h that nothing really dreadful can
ever happen to US; that We are so
big and strong and rich and power
ful that even though we lose the
first three periods or the first eight
innings Of the game, we will come
whacking through in the final
period or the ninth inning and sew
up the game.
As I have said before, there Is a
powerful difference between conf
dence and overconfidence. One is
nne, the other Is deadly.
America is overconfident II is
overconfident because It's leaders
have made it so.
The finest thing the President OF
the United States could do right now
would be to make an announcement
over the radio and through the press
that the United States was in great
danger and that the only way that
danger could be beaten off was for
every citizen to forget about himself,
forget about his business, forget
about living as he has and get in
there and pitch for as many hours
o day as he could.
have often thought what bless
ing it would be If the Government
would establish q national lecture
bureau and bring back men and
women who have tasted deeply OF
this war and let them talk to us.
What labor leader would be stupid
enough to fret about time-and-a-
half pay after he had heard the
message Of q tank driver from
Luzon? What citizen would be
short-sighted enough to complain
about rationing Of tires, sugar or
anything else after a nurse who had
been in Coventry had told him what
war was like?
Maybe I'm dead wrong, but I
sincerely feel that what those of us
in this country need to know is that
failure to win this war, that defeat
in this struggle, can mean a Jap
anese mayor in Pittsburgh, German
boss in Detroit, an Axis puppet state
in the Far West, with a complete loss
to every American of all the things
ne has inherited and OF all the
things he has worked to perpetuate.
What we need to do Is to get down
to business, even II we have to be
scared into doing it.
Distributed by McNaught Syndicate, Incl