Evening star., 1950-12-30
BY the Associated Press

At the end of the year II is
our good custom to pause tC
think about the past SO that we
can better plan the future. This
year end it is particularly inipor-
tant to do that and we should be
grateful to all who. out of wisdom
experience and proven idealism
help to clarity the grave issues
that confront us.
AS we look back, we can fee
satisfaction because CT what oui
Nation has done. Great dangers
still lie ahead, but that does not
prove that the five postwar years
have been years of failure and
futility. There are usually patches
of ground fog. But once we lift
our vision, SO that we see the pres
ent in the light of historical per-
spective, it is apparent that the last
five years have been years of great
achievement and that our people
have already surmounted great
peril.
Danger of Western Decadence.
Nations are like people in the
sense that while they may die a
violent death, they are most apt
to die in their beds, particularly
as they grow older. The great
question of our time has been
whether our Western civilization
had become so old and decadent
that it was bound to pass away,
giving place to the younger. oy-
manic and barbarian society born
out Of the unholy union of Marx S
Communism and Russia's impe-
rialiSm.
For 1000 years our Western civil
lization had been dominant in
the world. It won and held that
leadership on merit. 1t produced
spiritual. intellectual and material
richness such as the world had
never known before. The fruits
of Western society were spread
everywhere, and men elsewhere
wanted to share them, rather than
to destroy their source.
However. a thousand years is
a long time. even for a civiliza-
ton, and many had come to feel
that Western civilization had run
it's course and had become infected
with the same decay as had rotted
other great civilizations of the
past. The Communists in par
ticular took that view. claiming
that the West could no longer
produce the vital leadership OF
creative acts needed to satisfy the
material and political aspirations
of the dissatisfied masses.
Taking advantage of Russia S
defeat in World War I the Boil
shevik Communists seized the
political power there, and from
then on Russian state power and
Bolshevik party power worked in
hand to expand their joint control
The standard technique was not
war. but rather intensive propa-
ganda disparaging the West and
promising to satisfy all the dis
satisfied. Then, when the soften
ing up had occurred, terrorism,
subversion and civil war were used
to gain political control. BY those
methods the state and party
steadily enlarged their political
control until they had brought
under it about 800 million people,
or one-third of all the people there
are. And still they were rolling on
toward their announced goal OF
a Soviet-designed "one world"
Who was there to stop that
movement? Many thought that it
was unstoppable and a band
wagon trend was getting under
way.
United States Responsibility.
At this critical moment heavy
responsibility fell upon the United
States. We were still relatively
young nation; had not been
devastated by war and were on
that account less susceptible than
others to the poison that the Com
munist Party distills. We, if any,
could perhaps demonstrate the
faith and works needed to rally
men to the cause of human free
dom.
The whole world watched to see.
If, at that juncture, we had sought
only to save ourselves that would
have been public confession that
the Communists were right in the
judgment that the West had rot
ted. The tide of Communism
would have rolled on irresistibly
and we would have been encircled,
isolated ana finally engulfed. Only
as we sought to help others could
we save ourselves.
Our people responded to that
challenge by five. year record of
which we can be proud. -
Consider these deeds:
/. We showed, by example with
in our own country, that social
justice could be had without
travelling the Communist road of
violent revolution and materialism
Through graduated income and
estate taxes and social security and
pension plans, our capitalistic So
ciety has come to approach more
nearly than the Communist world
the ideal of production according
to ability and distribution accord
ing to need.
2. Within five years the colonial
system, which had become a fes-
tering sore, has been subjected to
orderly liquidation. Over $50 mil
lion people have peacefully won
political independence. Great Brit
ain, as the principal colonial
power, took the lead. Our own
direct national contribution has
been the granting of freedom to
the Philippines and the discredit-
ing of racial discrimination here
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