Evening star., 1947-12-02
The Atomic Geni

On this day five years ago, under the
stands of Stagg Field at the University OF
Chicago, science-for the first time In the
history of mankind-split the atoms OF
uranium on large scale and harnessed
their awesome energies in self-sustaining
nuclear chain reaction. So began, for all
practical purposes, the Atomic Age. Over
night, without even knowing it, the human
race had been thrust forward into IAN
tastically advanced new world full OF new
realities and new potentialities at once
terrible for the threat and galvanizing for
the promise implicit in them.
What sets this age apart from the past
is this: That it has at its disposal
power capable either of bringing about
with relative suddennesS-the virtual an
Inhalation of our race or of leading all men
and all nations into by far the most
astonishing and happiest period OF prog
ress since time began. The extraordinary,
the preternatural nature of this power can
scarcely be exaggerated. We need only to
remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki to
realize that it has carried the black art OF
warfare to the last limits of endurance.
We need only to remember that A
weapons are growing progressively dead
lier to understand that the world must
establish a lasting peace or f1irt with
suicide. If the choice is against suicide, If
it is affirmative, If it is on the side of life,
then mankind can look forward to bright
revolution, economically, politically, so
cially, medically-in almost every field of
endeavor aimed at bettering the physical
we'll being Of human society.
But we cannot be sure that the right
choice will be made. All we can be sure
of is that when the atom was first
harnesSed five years ago, something hap
pened that was so profoundly revolutionary
that the world can never again be the
same. AS Chairman Lilienthal OF our
Atomic Energy Commission has declared,
there has been loosed from one of natures
most forbidding bottles q geni whose
future is still very much open to question.
There has not been enough time as yet to
determine whether 1t is going to do
enormous good or enormous evil. The one
thing we know is that we cannot rebottle
it, For better or worse, it is here to stay,
and our old habits of national and inter-
national thought and action are simply not
enough to enable us to live safely with it
and make the most Of its bene1cent po-
tentialities. Actually, in the last analysis,
it is in itself not the thing we must worry
about What we must worry about Is our
own capacities to put 1t to work for
wholesome ends. Man brought 1t forth,
and man has the power to control it; If it
destroys him, he will have only himself to
blame.
This geni will be benehcent gent If all
nations-and this applies particularly to
Russia-join in subjecting it to genuine
system of supervision and development.
1t will be benencent 'geni in America and
everywhere If the people themselves,
through vigilance and the democratic
process make sure that they, and not 4
dictatorial few, have the decisive voice in
putting it to work. Otherwise, to para
phrase Genesis, this may be the final sum-
ming up, of our story: That man bit
deeply into the fruit of the tree of the
knowledge OF good and evil, that he lacked
the wisdom to digest it, and that he ate
of it in sorrow all the rest OF his days until
he and his world came suddenly to q
radioa oactivated end