Evening star., 1945-05-23
No Time for Defeutism

a curious resemblance between the
opening phase of the peace and the
early years of the war: AS was the
case until our Allied arms succeeded
in stopping the march of the Axis,
the United Nations today - in the
political sphere are suffering nu-
merous diSappointments, and these
disappointmentS, as far as the future
is concerned, test hope and faith as
severely as when our free world was
reeling under swift succession of
military hammer blows.
No one in his right mind ever
minimized the gravity of the fall of
France, the blitz on England, the
devastating Nazi advance deep into
Russia, the lightning like sweep of
the Japanese throughout the Pacific,
and other dark developments that
made our enemies once seem almost
invincible. These things were black;
they could not be laughed off; they
meant that We were very close to
losing the war Similarly. no one in
his right mind will now minimize or
laugh off the serious political dis
agreements that have cropped up to
bedevil the United Nations. The
Polish issue, the YugoSlav issue, the
series of unilateral acts in the Bal
kans-Such things as these are black,
too; they mean that the peace can
be lost unless all parties concerned
exercise restraint and wisdom before
the situation deteriorates irrepar-
ably.
BY the same token, however, we
ought not to exaggerate the difficult
ties OF the hour or lose our sense of
perspective in contemplating them.
AS we approach the task Of eStab-
fishing a decent peace, our Allied
world will be serving itself we'll if it
remembers how it faced up to the
profoundly painful discouragements
it suffered in the first years of the
war. 1t would have been easy then,
were 1t not for stubborn clinging to
hope and faith, to listen to the voices
Of the CaSsandras and yield to de-
featiSm and despair. But there was
no such yielding. Instead there was
StoutneSS of heart, an unshakable
will-to-Win, defiance of adversities,
with the result that now we see the
Axis totally smashed in Europe and
its last member in the process of
going down in Asia.
In many respects, of course, win
ming the peace poses problems far
more complex than those that had
to be solved to win the war. When
an enormous physical danger is COM
mon to all of them. nations unite
readily enough, but when the danger
passes the binding force weakens,
and the deep cultural, political, eco
nomlc and historical variations be-
tween them come into play. and
there is tendency toward disper-
sion. We must make allowances for
this, and by I'VE" is meant not the
United States alone but all other
countries charged with the respon-
sibllity of restoring order and secu-
rity to the world. We must make
allowances for the fact that after
the most terrible struggle in history,
it is not going to be easy to establish
an epoch of sweetness and light.
Years of effort will be required to set
our society to rights again. and If
the effort is to succeed there will
have to be vast amount of mutual
understanding, forbearance, pa
tlence and fair give -and-take.
AS in the early years of the war,
we must continue to cling to hope
and faith despite the discourage
ments. Hope and faith are abstrac-
tions, and cynics may laugh at them,
but they have been indispensable to
our military victory. They helped
immeasurably to weld the United
Nations into a mighty armed coali-
ton: They can be of similar help
now in making the peace-the best
weapons we have against the mutual
fears and mutual distrusts that can
wreck everything If we weary of
the fight and abandon ourselves,
without further struggle, to disillu-
Sionment and defeatism.