Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1945-08-07

it into a Enthusiastically destructive
weapon for use against Japan is
almost more than the mind can
grasp.
Before this fact, staggering in its
implications. all other news of the
day fades into insignificance. For
it means that mankind stands at
the threshold of new era-an era
in which wars will be banned If the
world is to survive and in which the
power that binds creation will be
put to work to build better life for
all of us.
But the peacetime benefits of
atomic fission lie in the future, pos
sibly years away. What concerns us
now is the knowledge that the mys-
ferrous, hidden energy of the atom
has been fashioned into a bomb,
and that one of these instruments
of vast destruction - two thousand
times as powerful as the largest
bomb heretofore known-has been
dropped on a Japanese city which
bore the name of Hiroshima.
What will the Japanese do now?
Many hours after the atomic bomb
had fallen an impenetrable cloud of
dust and smoke still concealed the
devastation in what had been city
of some $4,000 people. But from
our tests in the New Mexico desert
we know what this bomb can do.
And the Japanese people, even
if their war lords remain deaf to
reason and blind to the awful truth
which has been unveiled before
their eyes, must know what the
future holds. For President Tru-
man, in his announcement of the
atomic bombing, warned that we
are now prepared to obliterate every
productive enterprise the Japanese
have above ground in any city, that
we will destroy their docks and their
factories and their communications,
and that, when this rain of ruin"
from the air has done its work, our
sea forces will move up to the coasts
of Japan and our armies will swarm
ashore for the final. killing blow.
Furthermore, if this is not enough,
the japanese have been given
sketchy preview of more terrible
things to come. They have been
told that this first atomic bomb, al
though carrying an explosive charge
that is exceedingly small" in size,
has a blast effect equivalent to the
explosion of 10000 tons of TINT. And
they have also been given the
solemn assurance that improve
ments soon to be forthcoming will
increase by "several-fold" the pres
ent effectiveness of the bomb which
laid waste to Hiroshima. The scien-
lists in whose laboratories this
weapon was born are confident that
over period of years we may expect
the development of atomic bombs
which will be very much more
powerful" than those now at hand.
But the atomic bomb of today should
be enough to convince Japan that
the war is lost.
Nearly seven centuries ago, when
Japan lay open to invasion by the
fleets of the Mongol, Kublai Khan, a
violent typhoon destroyed the hos
tile armada. That gave rise to the
legend of the divine wind" to the
belief that Japan can count on
supernatural aid against her en-
emies. But If that legend survived
the earlier visits of the B-29s and the
Nays carrier planes, it must have
been done to death by the single
bomb which shattered the city of
Hiroshima. Now the truth is there
for all to see. The Japanese have
lost the war which began on that
"day of infamy" nearly four years
ago. We hope that they will sur
render and avail themselves of the
terms of the Potsdam ultimatum. If
not, If they choose to go down to
final ruin, the atomic bomb gives us
a new and incomparably more eff
fective means of Fastening their
total destruction, and we shall not
hesitate to use it.
Apart from its tremendous imme-
date meaning, the development of
this weapon is an event full of such
awesome and revolutionary implica-
tons for the future that there is no
exaggeration in saying that it marks
the beginning of a distinctly new
epoch in the civilization of this Ma
ton and the world.
AS long ago as the turn of the
century men knew that certain
atoms - the fundamental building
blocks of everything animate and
inanimate-contained within them
selves power fearsomely greater
than that produced by any other
source of energy. Not until 1889,
however, did science succeed in re-
leasing and Harvesting an inf1nites-
imal amount of that power from
uranium. Then, as told now by
President Truman and Secretary
Stimson, the story became one of a
race among nations to dig deeper
and deeper into the innermost Sc
crets of Nature, not simply for the
sake of progress or to widen the
horizons Of human knowledge, but