Evening star., 1948-12-07
Seven Years Luter

Time has way of blurring most things.
We can remember the fact that an attack
took place on Pearl Harbor seven years ago
today, but we cannot recapture the feel
ings that 1t aroused in America-the shock,
the sense of urgency, the quick coming of
leaden weight to the heart, the general
mixture of alarm and excitement, the up
surge of patriotism, and the swift pulling
together of all ranks inspired by high
resolve to surmount the common peril, go
forward to victory and build bright new
world after the fighting and dying were
done with.
Four years later, it was all over-or so
we thought. On both sides of the world,
our Axis enemies lay shattered In total
defeat, and it seemed then that the victor
nations could build decent and enduring
peace, the more so because the advent OF
the atom made the idea of another war
unendurable. Somehow or other, the power
yacuutnS left by a wrecked Germany In
Europe and wrecked Japan in Asia would
be taken care of in a peaceful manner,
order and stability would be restored to
every continent, and great new system OF
collective security would be established to
insure the happiness and safety of peoples
everywhere It was dream of impatient
idealiSm.
How easy it is, looking back, to be cyni-
cal, or diSilluSioned, or Scornful OF the
naivete of mans hopes, or bleakly despair
ing of his ability to save himself from
suicide. The fruits of victory have not
been sweet. Seven years after Pearl Har-
Dor, and more than three years after We
day and W day, we still lack peace
worthy of the name. 1t is true that
colossally evil tyranny-the tyranny OF the
Hitler-Tojo- -Mussolini Axis-has been swept
away, but in its place, among the victors,
there now looms totalitarianism at least
equally evil and worldwide in scope. The
power vacuumS have not been filled peace
fully; on the contrary, they are at once
the major objects and theaters of the cur
rent cold war between East and West-a
war so dangerous, so potentially hot and
explosive, that every participant feels i'm
PEELED to arm to the teeth with all the new
weapons of mass destruction.
But if there is thus reason to say that
to taste like ashes in the mouth, the VIC
tory itself still remains. Time may blur
many things, but it must not be allowed to
blur that. No matter what the cynics may
say about it, the significance of that VIC
tory is not to be minimized or belittled.
The men of America and all the other
Allied nations-the vast armies of the
brave who fought and died to win it-did
not make their sacrifices in vain. AS far
as our own country Is concerned, to ap-
preciate what was won, We have only to
ask ourselves where we would be now, and
what would be left of our liberties and
greatness, had the Axis triumphed in
Europe and Asia and turned with full fury
and limitless power to concentrate the
attack on U.s.
Quite obviously, bitter as many of its
fruits may seem right now, the victory
continues to be as important today as when
the Axis went crumbling down. Seven
years after Pearl Harbor, 1T has left us at
the summit of world power with the sup
port of the overwhelming majority of ma
tions. That fact in itself-the fact that
the great bulk of mankind is in sort of
coalition of freedom with us-must GER
tainly tend to make the new Soviet tyranny
remember what similar coalition did to
the tyranny of Germany and Japan. The
men of the Kremlin may yet wreck what
little peace we have, but If they have read
the lesson to be found in what happened
after December 7, 1941, they may reverse
themselves one of these days and sub
stitute cooperation for aggression. In
any event, in our upended human society,
it is still too early to abandon that hope
and surrender to the idea that another war
is inevitable.