Evening star., 1952-12-16
The Past Is but Prologue

ne P0St IS but Prologue
At this point The Star notes with some
humility that it is only century old in world
that has been spinning around, hotly and coldly
in the boundless reaches of space for perhaps as
many as S billion years.
Measured against such magnitude of time
and against the incomprehensble dimensions of
a multiverse made up of countless solar systems
like our own (Systems conceivaby inhabited by
creatures at least as intelligent as ourselves),
finite man, man the earthling, seems quite as
small and inconsequential as his newspapers
including this one
Yet, whatever may be the true measure of
humanity and its works in relation to the cosmos
and eternity, our races history in the past 100
yearS-as chronicled by The Star, among others
has certainly been thing of immense conse-
quence within the consciousness and purview of
man himself. 1t is history that obviously can
not be summed up in brief space, or even in
large space 1t de1es such an effort. It stands by
itself-a period without parallel since the be-
ginning OF time-aS an age OF tumult and
achievement, enormously good and enormously
evil, ever-changing, revolutionary. betimes tor
mented and betimes exalted, an experience that
has simultaneously made the blood run cold and
lifted up the heart with vision not seen in any
earlier century.
Consider what the times were like when
Captain Tate, as the founding editor circulated
the first issue of The Star on this day in 1882
The good Queen Victoria-personifcatio of pri-
vate virtue and public honor-was at the summit
of her tranquil reign in Britain The earth in
those days had human population of about
/ billion as compared to more than billion now.
In the United States-then just beginning to
teeter upon the brink of great and agonizing
civil war-there were mere q million people
l>la1 1@R,,
And here in our own Washington-the city des-
tined to become "the most powerful and brilliant
capital in the world"-the citizenry numbered
only some 10000, and the unpaved streets, the
mud and the provincialism were enough to make
the place an object of contumely and derision
clear around the globe.
However, even though it may have escaped
the perception of most men and women OF that
time, there was in 1852 ferment of ideas and
inventiveness that began, willy -nilly, to make
over the world, including washington. People then
had their horses and carriages and their oil
lamps and their gaslit devices, and their crude
steam engines, and their hopes and their dreams,
and their sense of progress in the air. But they
did not envision how terrible and how wonderful
were the things that were on the way. They did
not see as we see now chow could they have?)
telephones, automobiles, the radio, televsion,
aviation moving toward incredible supersonic
speeds, the industrial revolution, labors steady
increase in productivity, the growth-almost
frightening-in global population, and all the
new medical marvels of our own age
But 1852, while thus pregnant with the max
ings of benefcent progress was pregnant also
with catastrophe. Among other things, there
came in due course our. own Civil War, and the
Franco-Prussian War. and the First World War,
and the Second World War. And now in the.
fIova
by since the Marx-Engels Communist Manifesto
of 1848, democracy finds itself fighting for it's
life against the cruelest and most implacable
form of totalitarianism that has ever afflicted
mankind. Worse, having eaten copiouSly OF the
fruit of the tree of the knowledge OF good and
evil, our age has the harnessed atom at its dis
posal Potentially, this can lead to revolutionary
blessings of the first magnitude. But it can lead,
too-with A-weapons and the prospective hy-
drogen bomb-to the annihilation OF humanity.
Meanwhile, Influenced deeply by Darwin and
the latter day materialists in an epoch OF de-
clining religious faith, much OF mankind has
suffered the desolation of spirit inherent IN the
belief that everything is meaningless accident
in an environment governed not by God but by
mere whimsical chance. So it has been less than
a happy world-a world that has wept and feared
a great deal, and is still weeping and fearing
in the century since The Stars founding. But
this is not new condition for our race After
all, as we look forward from the past-from "the
dark, unfathomd retrospective need to re-
member that life has always been trial and
challenge and that our troubles today, though
grimmer because of our modern tools OF mass
destruction, are by no means without precedent.
Thus, as President-elect Eisenhower noted
while still at Columbia University, an 1857 is
sue of Harper's Weekly had this to say: 1T is a
gloomy moment in history. Not for many years,
not in the lifetime of most men who read this
paper has there been so much grave d deep
apprehension . :. Russia hangs as usual cloud,
dark and silent upon the horizon Of Europe
OF our own troubles no man can see the end"
And an ancient Assyrian has been credited with
inscribng the following on tablet as far back as
4,752 years ago: "The earth Is degenerating in
these latter days. There are signs that the world
is speedily coming to an end. Bribery and cor
ruption abound The children no longer obey
their parents Every man wants to write book"
For its own part, with such bygone observa-
tions as these in mind, The Star presumes to be
optimistic today. It presumes to hope, despite
the Cassandras that this lovely city, this won
derful country, this enhancing world-and Of
course itself as well-will still be here 100 years
from now.
G.