Evening star., 1942-02-15
The Lost Bottle

tllClI Cue 1lOIl GiiC 0AAViSA1, oAO WV
much inclined to discount early
military defeats in the confident
belief that the last battle surely will
be won.
Singapore, the Philippines, the East
Indies may be taken from us. Japan
may break out into the Indian Ocean
and cut the Burma road. The Ger
mans may unite their fleet by send
ing three warships through the mar
rows of the Straits Of Dover and
then emerge to threaten Allied
dominance OF the Atlantic. Yet
these disasters, actual or impending,
are not enough to break down the
deadening complacency which pre-
vents this country from exerting the
greater effort so urgently required to
offset the early reverses.
OF itself, rational confidence in
ultimate victory is virtue. We
ought not to succumb to panic or
hysteria. But the virtue Of conf
dence becomes vice when it leads
to slackening of effort, to dispo-
sition on the part of the individual
to shirk his responsibility, to a blind
willingness to postpone payment Of
the price of victory while dedicating
the present to the pursuit Of null
titude .of petty, selfish aims. And
these things-these vices-are very
much in evidence in this country
today.
Senator Tydings told his COL
leagues last Friday that while Ameri-
can men are dying out on Bataan
Peninsula, I'VE are destroying here
what they are fighting to preserve"
There is a great deal of truth in what
he said
General MacArthur's men are
flghting-and dying-to preserve our
democracy, that which we too glibly
speak Of as the American way Of life.
And we are destroying it-not by any
frontal attack nor by any one thing
that any of us may do, but by the
hundreds Of little things, often
thoughtless things, that break down
bit by bit the sense of individual re-
sponsibility and integrity which is
the foundation of democracy.
Senator Tydings pointed to some
OF our failures Of Government, the
overlooking of payrolls, the scramble
Of almost every agency and depart
ment in Washington to acquire a
defense status, the tendency in some
quarters to believe that we can cling
to the more abundant life" while
fighting an all-out war. Then there
are other evidences Of this vice Of
overconfidence. The fight OF the
farm bloc for higher agricultural
prices, even though it costs the pub
lie billion dollars, Is one. The de-
termination in Congress to lump pork
barrel projects with legitimate de-
Tense items In billion dollar rivers
and harbors bill is another. The
Normandie burns at her dock and it
is accepted as an accident-just an
other lone of those things" Some
labor leaders continue to be inter-
ested primarily in union promotion
and excessive wage demands, while
some manufacturers continue to put
profits and postwar problems ahead
OF the urgent military needs Of to-
day. Recently there have been three
strikes in vital defense plants
small as such things go, but a dis
tressing symptom Of our national
state of mind.
What is the explanation of this
waste Of precious time? It is not
that any Of these Americans would
wilfully put our national existence
in jeopardy, but rather that the real
extent Of our danger Is not UNDER
stood. The significance of defeats
which place ultimate victory farther
and farther from our grasp is not
fully comprehended because we lean
too heavily on the dangerous as
sumption that we cannot lose the
last battle.
The blunt truth is that we can lose
the last battle Of the war as we'll as
the first. And the way to lose it is to
continue with government-as-usual.
politics-as-usual, business-as-usual
and selflshness-as-usual until it is
too late to retrieve our blunder. 1t
is what we do now-this year-that
counts, and while we cannot win the
military battles that have already
been lost nor prevent the loss of
others in the future, there is one
fight that we can win now-today.
That is the battle with ourselves, the
struggle to make ourselves realize
how great is our danger and how
essential it is that we plunge at once
into the winning of the war on the
home front to the exclusion of all
other things. Not until this fight is
won have we any reason to assume
that victory in the last military bat
tie Of the war is assuredly ours.
Second Mutu Huri