Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1945-12-27
Hollow Ring Detected
In Peace on Earth
Observer Finds Phrase Voiced
Even Amid War Preparations
By David Laurence

Even Amid War Preparations
By David Laurence
This is the season of the year when
there is much talking and speech
making about the Prince of Peace.
Somehow 1t has become the fashion
to say Peace on earth, good will
toward men," as If the mere saying of
1t can have any real meaning without
some manifest action that indicates q
real change Of heart among our public
men and the statesmen of other ma
tions.
Take the National Capital, for In
stance. Here we preach freedom and
democracy and set ourselves up as
the righteous opponents of the doc
trines of the Prince Of Peace. But to
other peoples we must appear to be
vain hypocrites boasting our virtues.
for, if We are honest about it, we will
concede that too many Of us believe
in those virtues only in the Christmas
season.
Here, where the greatest movement
of all times could originate to bring
sanity to the world and to breathe into
the stunned, unthinking minds of so
many Of us spirit of true unselishness.
there is unhappily no awakening. This
Is not said in vein of criticism but of
sad reflection. President Truman and
many other leaders in Congress talk
fervertly of peace, but their attitude
appears to be one Of clarifying war and
preparing for further conflict as If war
and not peace-were to be the inevi-
table lot of our times.
Undercurrent Of Fear.
The talk is of a years compulsory
military training and of merged Army,
Navy and Air Forces with a single gen.
eralissimo in command to whom con-
stitutional powers hitherto jealousy
safeguarded shall now be delegated. All
this is not urged for some far-off day
against some unknown enemy who in
the distant future shall be guilty of
aggressive war. 1t is advocated in the
name of defense with great urgency, as
II the next war were coming next month
or next year and as if the world already
despaired of trying to use reason and
moral force and felt itself committed
to another epoch of bloodshed and de-
struction with atomic bombs as the
weapons of horrible conflict.
Fear is the undercurrent here-fear
born perhaps of sense of bewilder-
ment, if not guilt. We used bombs of
all kinds to destroy men, women and
children who were noncombatants, but
We did so for fear We would have our
own noncombatants destroyed If we did
not overcome the enemy's forces. We
say we saved American lives by using
the atomic bomb-but even as we say
it We fear that some day, as the atomic
bomb secret becomes widely known,
some suicide planes from Japan may
destroy tens of thousands of Americans
In sudden attack on our Western cities
1t Is too early to say whether the
atomic bomb has saved lives. It de-
ponds more on whether we provoke the
hatreds and passions of other peoples
and leave trail of injustices in oc-
cupied areas because we fear to argue
with those amongst us who insist on
brutishness as the dominant method of
educating conquered peoples.
Pope Speaks Clearly.
Where are the voices to stay the
hands of those who do not know that
they are starting the vicious circles of
vengeance and war by policies that
speak Of peace but actually prepare for
war? Pope Plus XII has spoken clearly
to all mankind in message that Cath
olics, Protestants and Jews may well
read and ponder. He says:
In the face of this accepted state Of
affairs, there remains but one solution:
| A return to God and to the order es-
tablished by Him. The more the veil
! is lifted from the origin and increase
| Of those forces which brought about
! the war, the clearer it becomes that
! they were the heirs, the bearers and
continuers of errors of which the es-
sential element was the neglect, over
throw, denial and contempt of Chris
tan thought and principles. -"
Experience should have taught all
that the policy guided by eternal truths
and the laws of God is the most real
and tangible of policies. Realistic poll
ticians who think otherwise pile up only
ruins"