The Wilmington morning star., 1944-10-25
Way OF Opportunity
BY FRANK L. PERRIN


is to imagine that our frontiers of opportunity
must to embrace and enjoy them, be led or
directed by chance or by those of our friends
grown wise by experience. At the present mo-
ment our thoughts are being directed to the
impending problems of our service men and
service women who, we are warned, will re-
turn to their homes to find (unless provision
is made for them meantime) that there is no
opportunity for them to readjust themselves
to their accustomed ways of gaining iveli-
hood. If this danger actually exists, real
emergency must be met and dealt with. Let
us examine the facts. ~e
First of all, let it be realized that the vast
majority of those who entered the services as
young men and young women without special
training or experience in dealing with the prob
lens of production, employment, exploitation,
or opportunity, are coming home with the
initiative born of courage and the knowledge
Of purposeful accomplishment. They will not
stand at the door without knocking. They will
not linger to wait for an invitation to 60 in
and possess that which is theirs for the taking
That is not forbidding PROJECT. It's realiza-
ton suggests no violence or injustice. In opera
ton and exemplification it will be discovered
that the young men and young women who
wend away to war have returned to us with
new vision of the realities which are the
substance, the warp and wool, and the way
of existence. To them it will not seem that the
door of opportunity has been closed by their
absence or by their experiences. Horizons I'M
dreamed of have been revealed, and these
are near at hand. They have discovered that
the home country they have so bravely de-
Tended is not decadent land whose frontiers
of opportunity have been narrowed by those
who feared that the people had forgotten how
to govern themselves or manage their affairs
wisely.
Some 70 years ago, it was discovered that
the water level in the vast valley Of the Red
River of the North had receded, after un-
numbered centuries, below the level of the
deep tllabl SOIL Pioneering adventures were
quick to embrace a new opportunity. Mules,
ploWs crude harvesting machinery of the peri
cd, threshers, and thousands of strong men
and brave women, transformed hundreds of
thousands of acres of grassy prairie into fields
OF wheat. New railroads were built to carry
the grain to market New mills were erected
and equipped to grind the increasing grists
into flour The vision Of the pioneers made
possible, in succeeding years: the development
Of thousands of homes, many villages and
cities, and measurable prosperity, where the
disciple of defeatism might have warned
against overproduction.
This open door to opportunity did not close
with the era of the bonanza farms. There came
to complement and survive it the development
of electric light and power, new and better
means of transportation undreamed Of strides
in communication and the thousand and one
things which we of today accept and enjoy
as matter of course.
There may be those who believe that a war
is needed to awaken a dormant sense of de-
featism to realization of our individual and
collective responsibilities as citizens and as
guardians and protectors of a common heri-
tage If this is true, it should not be so. There
is better and simpler way. It is to protect
and safeguard, not by precept and dogma, but
by unselfish sharing and use, the freedom Of
thought and action and the privilege of adven-
t1re in new and even unexplored regions Of
opportunity bordered by as yet undiscovered
frontiers
There is the twice-told story of the York
State farmer who questioned applicants for
work as to the best time, in their opinion, to
cut hog yoke. It is related that one advised
s5ring. another the fall and a third winter.
The fourth man, who was hired, said, 4 allow
the best time to cut a hog yoke is when you
find it, It is reassuring to believe, and to
have faith, that the young men and women
who return to their homes to be welcomed and
gratefully thanked by all of us will be quick
to discover that nothing essential has been
| lost to them or to us, and that IN addition
| to the old and tried there will be opened new
and welcoming doors Of opportunity prosperi-
] ty, and happiness.-Christian Science Monitor