Evening star., 1944-12-22
Indifference ofMusses
Seen as War Cause
Sin Repeated as United Nations
Violate Pledges, Says Writer
By David Laurence

Violate Pledges, Says Writer
BY David Laurence
Indifference on the part Of the Amer
lean people in the '20s to what was
going on in Europe may have been one
Of the reasons why a Second World War
happened. The same sin of indifference
is beginning to be noticeable again. This
time it manifests itself in connection
with the plain violation of pledges among
the United Nations
Whether the original Atlantic Charter
was or was not signed document when
Prime Minister Churchill and President
Roosevelt formulated 1t aboard war
ship in the Atlantic In August, 1941, 1t
has nevertheless been printed as an
official document by the State Depart
ment and by the Office Of War In
formation, and is made an integral
part of the Declaration by the United
Nations" which was signed on January
l, 1912, by the principal nations of the
world, including Great Britain, Russia
and the United States
The text of the Atlantic Charter reads
in part as follows:
"First, their countries seek no ag-
grandizement, territorial or other;
Second, they desire to see no terri
| torial changes that do not accord with
| the freely expressed wishes of the
| peoples concerned;
Third, they respect the right of all
peoples to choose the form of govern
ment under which they will live; and
they wish to see sovereign rights and
government restored to those who
have been forcibly deprived of them"
Expediency or Principle.
When Prime Minister Churchill an
nounced that unless the present exiled
| Polish government agreed to Marshal
| Stalins territorial demands now, it
| might get worse terms later on, was he
| conceding that expediency had taken
the place of principle, and that the
| pledges in the Atlantic Charter were
just scrap of paper? Public opinion
in Great Britain as well as the United
States is very much aroused. Will
| public opinion assert itself, or will it
remain 1nQl1erent?
Times have not changed. Here is a
| quotation that sums up succinctly the
| problems of today in terms of what hap
pened nearly two thousand years ago.
1t was written by DR.. Henry P. Van
Dusen, president-elect of the Union
Theological Seminary of New York,
and appears in book entitled Reality
| Ia,
nent to read, in the holiday season, this
extract:
This is the pathos of Calvary-not
what it did to Jesus, but what it meant
to those who saw it. The cross is not a
judgment upon Christ, nor even pri-
marily upon his murderers, but upon the
respectable well-intentioned onlookers
not muscle to prevent it; indeed, who
had no comprehension of what they saw.
why. then, did men cruelty Jesus?
What sent Jesus to the cross was not
the sins of personal life but the sins
OF public life. Not such sins as attack
and down man in his own chamber
or scar his private relationships, but the
sins that attack men when they meet
in market place or parliament and make
OF our corporate relations dramas Of
personal ambition and intrigue, dog
fights of selfish passion. Among the
| cruciflers may have been some whose
personal morals could not stand scrutiny
Indifference of Masses.
| They did not put Him to death on
| that account; He did not threaten their
| private lusts. They crucified Him be-
cause their social conventions were
challenged, their social privileges i'm
periled, their social positions endangered.
He appeared political radical, a re-
igious revolutionary. In brief, the
crucifiers were not sinful men fearing
exposure. They were public servants
protecting the status quo. Jesus Christ
was crucifled by the bigotry of respon-
sible public leadership and the COM
placent Indifference of the masses.
I'm 19 centuries basic human nature
has not changed perceptibly. Nor have
the impulses and passions in mems
makeup that strut across the arena of
public events. The forces that DESTROYED
Jesus are still the most powerful factors
in mankinds corporate existence Still
these are the most dangerous enemies
of His will and His kingdom:
"The power of vested interests, politi-
cal and religious;
'"The irrational responsibility Of fear;
"The insidious self-deception Of am
bition, pride, egotism;
'"The inertia of complacent indiffer-
ence.
He who has grasped the drama of
that Mans life has understood human
| history. He who has made himself
sharer in that Mans faith has made
life's final decision"
fRenroductiop p;.h+s p...-u.s