Christopher Columbus High School - Anchor Yearbook (Bronx, NY)

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PRlNclPAL's PAGE YEARBOOK MESSAGE-JUNE 1946 What with gramicidin, penicillin, insulin, sulfa-compounds, vitamins, hormones, oxygen tents, iron lungs, transplanted corneas and other marvels of medical science, I am sure you are all going to live for at least sixty years more. I wish I were as sure that you are going to be at ease and happy in a peaceful world. I am not because I know that your lives are going to be worked out in the presence of a struggle between two opposed and irreconcilable concepts of human social and political organization, namely, democracy and totalitarianism. You must choose between them and the choice may not be easy, for two reasons. First, both have advantages. Second, the eHort to distinguish between them is confused by the claim of totalitarianism that it actually is democracy, and by the current tendency of democracies to adopt devices heretofore regarded as logical only under totalitarian forms of government. To clarify what follows, I propose the following definitions. Democracy is a form of organization in which supreme power resides always in all of the people and is exercised by representatives whom they elect and whose tenure of oliice they control, in which all the people have political and legal equality without hereditary or arbitrary differences in rank or privilege, and in which all individuals are free to assemble, speak, write, print, worship, form associations of any kind, including political parties, and in general to act freely within the limits of laws, the making of which embodies their consent to be governed by rules which they may change, repeal, or retain at will. Totalitariariism is a form of organization in which the state claims and exercises the right to dominate every phase of national life, and in which the government is so organiized as to be dominated by one political party or one power which does not permit recognition of or representation by any other political party. These are calm, objective, dictionary definitions. but the implications of the difference will leave no sensitive person calm. To say that totalitarianism is or can be democracy is an outright lie and should be recognized as such, no matter where it exists, what its local name is, who heads it, or what one's sympathies, racial, religious or political, may be. It is inescapably the rule of all by a part, the domination of everyone by a self-chosen fraction, a form of control necessarily self-perpetuating and therefore brooking no opposition, and compelled to maintain itself in power by using hired thugs, thought-police, spies, and a special-benefit-and-privilege party or army large enough to keep the people subdued. The membership of the party may change somewhat from time to time, through blood purge, starvation, or imprisonment, but the party and its control of the life of the nation continue. I said above that both systems have advantages. Democracy gives freedoms to the individual, but one of these is freedom to commit political suicide, to destroy freedom itself. Freedom to be a truly great spirit, or to be a wretch. Freedom to work for the common good, or to try to exploit our economy for selfish ends. Freedom for unlimited trial and error, for an ever-changing, never-at-rest effort to reconcile conflicting desires, to obtain agreement on one purpose out of many. In contrast to the unceasing turmoil arising from the exercise of individual freedoms in democracy, totalitarianism presents a picture of order, of definiteness, of singleness of purpose. There is no complicated structure of checks and balances between separately autonomous governmental bodies. There are no strikes in key industries to interfere with the operation of the national economy. No, indeed! And no danged nonsense, either, about individualistic competitive influences on the prices of commodities. No Fords, Kaisers, Chryslcrs, Endicott-Iohnsons, Crosby, Eric Iohnstons, International Harvesters, or Sears Roebucks. Deviators! Disturbers! Individualistic producers of disorder! There is one other advantage that totalitarianism has over democracy. It relieves most people of the necessity of thinking. You don't have to make decisions, they have been made for you. In a democracy you are forever being urged and exhorted and driven to think, to act, to join, to debate, to participate, to decide, to help make decisions because the decisions will be what you make them. No such goings-on under a totalitarian government. You don't have any individual opinions. Not out loud. This is it, brother, and you do it. Or maybe you'd prefer to improve your muscle-tone with a ten-year stretch in the salt mines? Who are you, anyhow? The State is the supreme source of power and that's where your orders come from. No deviationism. No opinionated individualistic side- slipping. No, you don't do any thinking on your own. Not even if you are a member of the Party. In fact, most particularly not if you ARE a member of the Party. fWell, boys and girls, which are you going to choose? For, choose you must. As I know you understand, I hope that, despite all its blundering and uncertainties in action, its turmoil and change and falling short of perfection, your choice will be definitely and permanently for democracy. I say this because I know it represents the greatest effort in the history of mankind to work out in practice the principles of Hebraic-Christian religion and ethics. I believe profoundly that all men were created equal and that they were endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. I believe that political power is a natural right of man, that the individual citizen is the source of power, that the control of power must be in him, and that the state is never rightly the master of man but a device created by him for the purposes of self-government. I am sure that you have these beliefs also. But I must warn you again that in a democracy we are free to destroy our own freedoms and that the transition from freedom to self-imposed bondage could be deceptively easy because it had been gradual. I was appalled to read in today's newspaper 4

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THE FUTURE BELCNGS TO LIS 'B Now it is up to you. O f m 0 Ye No longer are you shielded beneath wings of protection. 'iz 31 J You must face the world alone. It is not a happy thought, because now the world is cruel, yet hungry and pitiful. And you the youth and future of this devastated world, are its hope. You ITlLlSt take on the burden your brothers could no longer carry, and guide the bedevilled. Take the golden threads of knowledge you have gained and weave from them the spirit of tolerance, generosity, and sacrifice. Accept your American heritage. Grasp its fortunes and do not let them slip through greedy fingers. Preserve it, and share the good and kindness of which you have so much. You are the sunrise in the East. Do not set until you can proudly glisten in a peaceful and beautiful sunset. Yes graduate, now it is up to you. 555. . Q 252 2132? .EE ish , fiRIiTTA SHOTILN n I fail . . 'F ' cf! ' game fl Wy 4 -fmt W ef' MJKMLJ 1 1 3' ,siylr riff , ., v ' i l' l DX 3 004 gtifi

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John M. Loughran tliiit tht- r.ulro.ul unions haul propost-tl tht- taking on-r ol tht- countrx s r.ulroguls hi' tht- iiiitioiml goxcrn- nu-nt. Thiit win' lit-s tlisiistcr. Nzitioniilizt- tht- iziili-oauls. iuul hus. truck. wuitur iuul iiii' lim-s must follow. Triinsportqition untlt-i' vt-iititil control. Tht-n tlo tht- sguiu- with coqil uiincs. :intl wiitcr-pown'r mul oil must follow, 'l'lit-ii nzitionzilivt- tht- hunks, :intl iiisurzinuc. iiulustrv, :incl rt-nl propt-rtx' must follow. Now, protluction. 4-wliiiiigt-, iuul trniisportgition gut- unilci' ct-ntrzil control. Nt-xt. nl' coursv augriculturc. Now wt- vontrol tht- hotlics iuul tht- work of 4-it-rihotlx. Nt-xt? Tlu-ii' tuintlsl So. nation- zilixt- ctlucaitioii. puhlicqition, riulio. iuul gill coiiuiiuniciition iuul protluqtion ol' iiuicliiiu-i'y tlu-rt-lor. Nt-xt :incl liist. tht- smillls ot iiicn. .-X st.ttt- religion. :intl till is oit-t'. .-Xgwin. l wgtrn you to lit- on your guzirtl lJL'CQlllNl' tlit-rn' tire- too :iiiinv pt-oplr in this t'UllIllI'Y who would lic willing to fort-go thuii' intlixitlugil lit-uloiiis in it-turn for gi gtigiiliiitvqt- that they woulcl liiivt- footl iinil slit-ltt-i'. Also, .intl worst-. tlmm- nrt- too iiiguix pt-oplu who woulcl like nothing licttt-r thqin xi chatnct- to tcll ci't-i'i'oiit- L-lsc how iiuiny hours to work. how iiiuuh lit- woultl gi-t pt-r hour. whntt hc coultl hui :intl .tt wluit print-. :intl what ht- could think guul git wh.it mist. .-Xml tlicrt- iirt- too ui.iny pt-oplt who st-ciii unqililt- to wt- that lichintl such iittriictiit- plirnist-s tis ii pltinncil t-uiiioiiixf' tlu-rc tux- tht siuiu' grim in-ct-ssitit-s its nrt- ust-tl in ut-rtgiin pliict-s wlivrt- wt- hzixt- such t-conoiiut-s. iigiiiit-ly tisyluiiis tuul prisons. For Your comfort in ni trying titius. I wish to t-ntl with some ol1sCi'v.ltions that contgiin .i hit of proplit-my which l lit-lit-iw you will liit- to st-c lulhlln-tl. 'llitgilit1u'i.iiiisiii uiti'i'iz-s within it tht- st-ctls of its own tlcstruction lit-czuisc it claire not pt-ruiit its pcoplc Iii liiivt- frcctloiii of thought. Nllflxill, qisscuihly :intl iiiovt-iiit-nt. Furtlu-r, it fliirt- not lirct- its pt-oplc from physical. mgitt-i'i:tl wzint. lt is in tht- n.iturc of mzui to liiirtci' his soul for hrt-:ul only so long .is lu- is YL'I'X. vt-ry liungry. As soon Lis iiiiitt-i'iiil wzints .um sgitislictl. spiritual wants girist' zuul tht-sc htiiu uxplosixt- form-. 'l'licrt-l'ort- no totitlitnirinui st.1tt- tain long outlast its own sticrt-ss in proxicling work, loonl. iuul shcltvr for its pt-oplc. rllllust' iittiiincil. uiimls will aiwiilar. uiclivuluzil spirits will I'l5L' iuul cliiillcngc control. 'lhc Stiitn- will tri to iutuntauu itst-ll lw lorcc. lt will lit- tlt-lt-iitt-tl. llln' om'-llairty control will lic lirokcn. Othcr pgirtius will slitirt- tht- niitiongil control. Quite- possihly, tlic Sturt- will liiivt- uiziturul to gi tlt-gn-c wlu-rc .it liist it will lic nililt- to gittt-iiipt thc tlilliuult husim-ss of lit-ing ll tlt-mocriicy. IOI IY M. LOUGI IRAN l'i'uiqiptil 5