Evening star., 1946-05-08
A Year After

When the news came year ago it
came as no surprise. For days the
complete collapse of German arms
had been so self-evident that the
signing of the surrender at Reims
and President Truman's proclama-
ton of victory in Europe seemed
little more than formalities. There
was no laundering suddenness in
the event, no tremendous climax,
and the reaction to it in America
an America somberly conscious of
the fact that a world had been
ripped apart and that a bloody war
still ragged across the Paciflc-was
less. than wildly exultant.
But there was prayerful thanks
giving. There was a good measure
of rejoicing. After long years of
violence and bloodletting without
precedent, a black scourge had been
beaten and crushed into the dust,
and one could think again of Europe
at peace. with the solid hope that
the millions of brave men who had
suffered and died to achieve this
day had not suffered and died in
vain. Now, as far as war itself went,
there remained only Japan to be
brought to terms, and once that
hard task were accomplished, peo-
Piles everywhere could look forward
to the building of better world.
Today. year later, it is only too
easy to yield to pessimism regarding
the hopes that filled mems hearts
when Nazidom came crashing down.
Today, in Europe and Asia. our
enemies sare totally incapable of
stopping anything We may wish to
do. Yet the mighty coalition with
which we and our Allies won the war
has begun to fall apart at the seams.
We held fast together against the
common peril of the Axis, but now
that that peril is gone, we tend to
part company, we suspect each
other, we have difficulty in seeing
eye to eye on how to win the peace,
and all the worlds dreams of new
and brighter age appear to be fad
ing into nightmare visions of power
politics as evil as any in history.
The trouble is primarily between
Russia on one hand and Britain and
the United States on the other. The
political and economic differences
between them are deep and funda-
mental, but to say at this point that
these differences are irreconcilable,
to say that they must inevitably
divide the world into two blocs
impelled eventually to take arms
against each other, is to surrender
to a dark and sterile counsel of de-
spair.. Such an attitude ignores en-
tirely the terribly complex nature of
the problems confronting mankind.
1t ignores the obvious fact that these
problems cannot be solved all at
once and perfectly, but must be
handled with determined patience
over period of many years. After
every war, coalitions break up, pas
sions are unleashed,. nationalistic
forces seethe, and now as in the
past-in world upended as never
before since time began-perspec-
tive demands that we see these
things in their proper proportions
against their true background.
The peace still is very young. To
be cynical about it, to be darkly
pessimistic about it, to lose all faith
so soon in the ability Of the United
Nations to shape and maintain it, is
to strike blow against 1t before it
has had half chance. It is true
enough. of course, that the picture
is anything but bright, but we can
not afford to despair or to relax for
a moment in the fateful effort to
achieve genuine international CO.
operation in an age of weapons de-
structive beyond imagining.
The challenge before us is at once
simple and dreadful: History must
record the Second World War as the
last great war, or the time will
almost surely come when there will
be no civilization left to write his
tory. A year after We day the
living and the dead alike cry out
for unremitting labor, despite every
present discouragement, in behalf
of an enduring peace. without this,
the future must be one of almost
unendurable fear and foreboding.