The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1945-08-20
Can 1t Do This?
By CARLYLE MORGAN

Over at our house there is shiny red ball
David plays with on the nursery floor. It is
a large-ish ball. But net too big for him, aided
bv the suction between his tiny hand and the
smooth surface of the. ball, to pick up and
wave around over his head 1t is, have heard,
Just about the size of the explosive core OF
the atomic bomb.
Over in Japan there are-or were-two large
cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Two of those
cores no bigger than David's red ball burst
open over these cities Nearly tMo-thrds OF
Hiroshima (pop $4,000 was wiped out by
the first atomic bomb ever loosed on man.
kind The second bomb is described by pilots
as more efficient than the first.
Things do move right along, don't they?
But not all things We now blast a city
off the face of the earth more easily than we
can bulge a pre1udlce.
So we should not place too much reliance
OF assertions that the fearsomeness OF the
atomic bomb automatically precludes future
war. Peace is not assured by the fear this bomb
evokes. Peace comes from understanding how
to do the most right by, not the most wrong
to, our neighbours
Suppose that in 1881 the United States and
Britain had possessed the secret of the atomic
bomb. Would their governments have been bet
ter able to make up their minds whether to
pursue a firm policy against Japanese ag-
gression in Manchuria? Memories of at least
one pro-Japanese speech in the House of Com
mons, memories of American obsession with
domestic, economic problems and their social
consequences at home, memories of the dlplo-
matte fumbling between London and Washing
ton, memories of the widespread and expert
ly tended distrust of British Tories and i'm
perialism in isolationiSt America-all these
make it at least a question whether the pos
session of greater striking power against the
enemy would have FASTENED action against
him.
The difficulty OF the peaceable world then
was that it had not learned or at any rate
was not ready, to distinguish between its enc
mics and its friends. Questions of dollars and
pounds were involved, too. And questions of
social organization.
All these questions were to become sharper
as aggression led to unchecked aggression.
Was it lack of an atomic bomb that prevented
support of the Spanish Republic by democra
tic governments? Or was it complex of social
commercial, political, and clerical divisions in
countries whose basic national interests were
even then being attacked by the Axis?
The atomic bomb might have helped Mr.
Chamberlain at Munich-if democratic lead
ers in those days, and not only in Britain,
could have made up their minds between Com
munism and Fascism.
There was time when the democracleS
striking power was more than equal to the
task of preventing Axis aggression if they had
recognized that that task would be the chief
one confronting them for decade and would
at last involve their survival
The test Of the atomic bomb as peace
agency now lies not mainly in the question
whether it can be controlled for the time being
by the United States and Britain If efforts
TO keep the bomb in Anglo-American hands
seemed to portend effort to exclude Rus
STA from intimate association in postwar coun-
ellis, the atomic bomb might become the great
est danger to peace that the world has known
For the physicist are agreed that no nations
can long keep this secret from others.
II the atomic bomb can blast hole in cur
rent concepts of national sovereignty, it will
have done something notable as it did to
Hiroshima. For modest beginning, why not
try its effects against the American tariff and
the British Imperial preference" system Of
trade? And what about thoce antiouated argu-
ments about "war-debts' that still wax noisy
now and then? Would the atomic bomb make
any dent in the atmosphere at one of these
debates? We ought to find out before expect
ing too much of it in the way of peace
Christian Science Monitor.