Canadian Brock Chisholm's Washington address of last fall in which he said "We are the kind of people who make wars every fifteen or twenty years" and urged us to see that children were brought up to face the truth, so that they would be free from the neurotic compulsions that breed wars.) But there isn't time for that. We have to reach the adult generation of today. And I have been driven to the edge of despair by the events of the past year.
In the "Correspondence" section of the same number of the "New Republic," there are two letters. One is concerned with adult education, the other with the various interpretations of "freedom of the press." Both are most important. We have to use pressure methods on the minds of this generation. We have to pound them with thoughts about the dreadful threat of war, bombard them as we did in war with a line of thinking that must be adopted. this is a tremendous responsibility for those who undertake it. But the other sides --- the defeatist, the hate-breeding, the inertia-tending campaigns are already on, and it is only democratic to raise our standards as high as theirs. (You see I am not only mixing my metaphors, but already identifying myself with you). this line of reasoning will be a comfort to those who worry about the abstractions of free expression---for myself, I am among those who feel responsibility must be required of those who claim freedom, and should not object to having the hate-preachers repressed.
As a Canadian, I may see some things differently from you. Perhaps I may put more emphasis on the self-righteuosness of Americans, their blindness to what the rest of the world thinks about their bland assumption of leadership and power. From the disgusting "show" of the Japanese surrender on the "Missouri" until today, there is no doubt of American complacency, -- much of it quite innocent, almost unconscious---about their place in the world. Last fall I heard a Canadian radio speaker say "We must always remember that the atomic bomb is in the hands of the nation that used it." I think most Americans would think that an unfair remark---but would the rest of the world?
On the other hand, much American thinking is not so innocent. You will have the hate-preachers to deal with, and their millions of dupes. The Russia-haters and the England-haters and the rest. The way in which the anti-Russian feeling was whipped up this winter is a good example of the power of the not-so-innocent. Where were bombs falling this spring? In Iran? But if they fall only on dark-skinned easterners, who are aspiring to liberty against century-old white control, it means little to us--Canada is very vulnerable on this point-- we have the old sentimental weakness for Britain which prevents our clear thinking where British wrongs, not Russian, are concerned.
Whatever we do, let us take Russia with us. We might as well be realistic, and recognize that we have to deal with the Russian government. And Russia is neurotic. How could any country avoid it after her experiences? Do you remember Ilya Ehrenburg's "The Tempering of Russia" which shocked so many good souls when it appeared on this side of the Atlantic? But shocking or not, the articles in