Crosby High School - Blue and White Yearbook (Waterbury, CT)

Page 33 text:

Q.-D, -safe-Q.-Y nation can make, toward world peace and stability is the preservation of our own democracy, undiluted by the ravages of war, freely and efficiently functioning, and holding steadily aloft the lamp of freedom, and the light of liberty. The government of the United States has no political involvements in Europe. Yet in our own right, we recognize our responsibilities as part of a world of nei hbors. We in the Americas are no lon er a far-awa continent. S 8 Y There has never been a period in our history when we have had both the opportunity and willingness to serve mankind as at present. Our forefathers knew that no government could make its citizens equally rich or successful any more than it could endow them with equal physical or intellectual gifts, but the equal dignity of men, and the equal right to self-fulfillmentg these it was the duty of their government to preserve. The opportunity for the American citizen to rise as high as he is fairly able, which has made America the mecca of the oppressed of other lands, is the right of every man to carve his own destiny. This is the equality and opportunity which made America a symbol of hope to all mankind. I wonder if 194.0

Page 32 text:

- .tae-Y A HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR LOOKS AT AMERICA'S PLACE IN THE WORLD TODAY by fobn Gajney The question before the world to day is not a question of errors of judgment or of injustices committed in the past. It is a question of the fate of the world, today and tomorrow. Let us visualize clearly our part in world affairs. Experience is a harsh and unrelenting teacher. The situation in Europe today proves beyond any shadow of doubt that our participation in the last world war contributed little, if anything, toward the solution of the problems of Europe. I believe that despite anything we can do, the wrangle over territorial boundary lines and the balance of power in Europe will continue to shift in blood and smoke until Europe itself finds its own way toward amity and peace. I believe that the greatest contribution we, as a N240

Page 34 text:

'JAY pr Q-:ae-qv we realize just how much we, as a people mean, not only to ourselves, but to all the world? I wonder if we understand that this government has been the inspira- tion of every enlightened statesman in the world, upon every measure looking to an enlargement of human liberty? Because American democracy places the highest value upon the individual, it requires in return the highest and best in man. It demands that he be capable of that self-government which is self-restraint, that he accord the same justice, respect, and tolerance to others that he asks for himself, that he use his freedom not merely for self-advancement, but for the benefit of his fellow-men. It is a challenge to life of the richest and fullest kind, and to that undaunted spirit which rises above defeat and surges forward to new conquests for all the race. Perhaps, in a cruel world, to stand for kindness, in a warring one, for peace is to achieve more enduringly than by pride, pomp, and the circumstances of war. For in midst of all that fights against it, the idea of peace still lives in the human heart, warmed and kept allame in the surrounding darkness and quenching 1940