Evening star., 1945-08-15

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most terrible of all wars turns its
attention now to the problems OF
peace and reconstruction.
There will be differences of opin-
ion as to where and when the Second
World War began. For some, it
started in China. Others will seek
its true origin in Ethiopia or in
Spain. And still others will 60
further back. some as far as the
Treaty of Versailles. But for most
of us this first total war" began
on the quiet Sunday morning of
September 3, 1899, just few days
short of six long years ago. It was
on that day that the tired voice
of a disillusioned old man informed
a tensely waiting world that Great
Britain was at war with Germany.
The speaker was Prime Minister
Neville Chamberlain, the man who
had come back from Munich with
the promise of peace in our time,"
and who found himself, a year later,
telling his people that you can
imagine what bitter blow it is to
me that all my long struggle to win
peace has failed"
Almost intuitively, listeners in
every country of the world knew
that the day of Neville Chamberlain
was over. A Britain, a way of life
for which he stood, was ending.
Within a few months, under the
stunning impact of German power,
his cabinet had fallen; in a little
more than a year the man himself
was gone. But Neville Chamberlain
left with us these words: 1T is an
evil thing that we shall be fight.
ing-brute force, bad faith, injustice,
oppression and persecution. Yet
l am certain that right will pre-
vail" Today that faith is vindi-
Gated. At cost of many millions
of human lives and upwards of
trillion dollars, right has prevailed
and the evil thing which came so
perilously close to subduing the
world has been cast down in ig-
nominious defeat.
There is little purpose, in this
hour of triumph, in reviewing the
steps by which victory was achieved.
Two dates are conspicuous among
the others-June %, 1941, when a
reckless, e-stepping dictator,
intoxicated by his victories, gave
the command for the ruinous march
into Russia, and December 7, 1941-
the "day which will live in in
famy"-when the warlords in Tokyo
brought the United States into the
struggle with their sneak attack on
Pearl Harbor.
But this final victory is not attrib-
utable to one power or another. It
has been won by men of many races
men who preferred death to slav-
cry, men whose courage kept faith
alive in the darkest hours, men who
stood and fought and worked to-
gether throughout the years of
heartbreaking effort. This is not
the time for exultation or false pride.
Rather, it is time for solemn
thanksgiving, day when we should
resolve never to forget that the world
need not have been tortured by six
years of deadly conflict if mankind
had been willing to devote to the
preservation of peace even a tiny
fraction of the energy and intelli-
gence and courage which has been
expended on war.
With the beginning of peace, the
evils of war pass, but it is good that
the memory of them remains to
temper any mood of jubilation we
may feel today. For it is not enough
merely to let our hearts be lifted up
because our wouldbe enslavers are
vanquished and there is no more
killing or dying to be done. There
is nothing simple about what lies
ahead, and we know it. The things
we remember tell us that. The
wreckage of our age and the scien-
tific potentialities of the future
leave no room for doubt about it.
AS never before since the beginning
of time, the family of nations must
from this point on work together in
the closest possible unity for the
restoration of political and economic
order, for a universal improvement
of living standards and for a per-
manent guarantee against the an
archy of aggression and the danger
of a third world war.
In this, as it has already begun to
do, the United States must assume
prime leadership. 1t must do so be-
cause it is by far the richest and
mightiest country in the world. It
must do so because it is the keeper,
at the moment, of the most dreadful
secret that man has ever held. This
is the secret of atomic energy. In
it's good aspects, it holds out the