PAST AND PRESENT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 April 1941, Page 6

PAST AND PRESENT

MAKING THE WORLD SAFE FOR DEMOCRACY. “To make the world safe for democracy" is. alas, the sorriest of slogans today. It is a sad reminder, writes Mr Erwin D. Canham in the “Christian Science Monitor.” Yet. instead of repeating it with lips twisted into wry sarcasm, men should study why ii failed. The non-intefvenfion-ists say the United States should never have entered the war of 1914-18. Others, perhaps with a sounder knowledge of history and Christianity, declare that the United States should never have withdrawn with the peace which was attempted in 1919. And the selfishness which distorted the Versailles settlement is generally admitted. Of the common peonle who fought the war of 1914-18 most seem to agree that not their idealistic, heroic effort, but the mismanagement of the peace was the reason why a magnificent slogan is today a taunt and mockery. But that grievous anti-climax should not prevent us from trying to see Hie moral values at stake in the present war. and it should spur us on to a greater effort in Hie peace that must come. Indeed, right now when the major job is to win the light for freedom on domestic as well as foreign fronts, men everywhere are increasingly beginning to think of the world after the war. This striving, even now when the battle is far from won. is the greatest earnest of men’s eternal victory. 11 infuses moral elements into the struggle which lift it to the highest plane. It gives to our effort today some of the idealism which genuinely actuated the American nation in 191711) and was lost for a time in reaction and chicanery.