Evening star., 1962-01-01
Text for 1862

NOW we begin the new year, but we
cannot really ring out the old, as the
poet urges. We cannot do so because the
legacy bequeathed by 1861 still leaves us
with problems and challenges, hopes and
fears that have been with us not only
during the past twelve months, but ever
since the end of the Second World War.
This legacy is both domestic and in
ternational in character Here at home,
economically and otherwise, it is a gen.
orally promising one. AS for the wide,
wide world, however, it is in many re-
spects melancholy thing that gives us
only an uneasy, tenuous peace at best.
To cite but few of its more somber fea-
lures, it consists of an ever-accelerating
armamentS race; torment and potential
catastrophe in the Congo; the threat of
a Communist take-over in places like
Laos and south Wet Nam; the weakened
condition of the United Nations and the
danger that the General Assembly may
become kind of Tower of Babel. And
finally, of course, the Soviet-manufac-
tured Berlin crisis is always with us.
Here is a picture of world that
could suddenly be plunged, either by
mlScalculation or deliberate intent, into
an almost unimaginably destructive
atomic-h hydrogen War-a war in which
there could hardly be any victors, ex-
cepting possibly the ants, or the worms,
or some other form of insect life Yet the
situation needs to be faced with courage
and resolution by all of us, by all Amer
leans and all other free men everywhere.
For what we are confronted with now is
a gigantic test of firmneSs, fortitude and
will power between ourselves and the
Moscow-Peiping empire of Red totali-
tar1aniSm. And as to that, on this New
Years Day, we think it fitting to quote
from William James essay on the human
will and it's ability to cope with the worst
while hoping for the best:
The huge world that girdles us about puts
all sorts of questions to us, and tests us in
all sorts OF ways. But the deepest question
that is ever asked admits of no reply but the
dumb turning of the will and Tightening of our
heart-strlngS as we say, Eyes, 1UiH eUen haze
1t SOL" When dreadful object is presented, or
when life as a whole turns up its dark abysses
to our view, then the worthless ones among us
lose their hold on the situation altogether, and
either escape from its difficulties by averting
their attention, or if they cannot do that
collapse into yielding masses of plaintiveness
and fear. But the heroic mind does diff
ferently. To it, too, the objects are sinister and
dreadful, unwelcome, incompatible with
Wished-for things. But it. can face them if
necessary. The world thus finds in the
heroic man its worthy match and mate; and
the effort which he is able to put forth to
hold himself erect and keep his heart un-
shaken is the direct measure of his worth
and function in the game of human life. He
can stand this Universe. He can meet it and
keep up his faith in it in the presence of those
same features which lay his weaker brethren
low. He can still find zest in it, not by
"oStrich-like forgetfulness," but by pure in
ward Willingness to face the world with those
deterrent objects there. And hereby he be-
comes one of the masters and the lords of life
He must be counted with henceforth; he forms
part of human destiny. Neither in the
theoretic nor in the practical sphere do we
care for, or go for help to, those who have no
head for risks, or sense for living on the peril
Gus edge. We draw new life from the
heroic example The prophet has drunk more
deeply than any one of the cup of bitterness
but his countenance is so unshaken and he
speaks such mighty words of cheer that his
will becomes our will, and our life is kindled
at his own
These words seem to us to constitute
an excellent text for 1862 and for the
continuing time of troubles ahead, with
all humanity, East and West, teetering
on an edge far more perilous than the
one envisioned by William James.