North Andover High School - Knight Yearbook (North Andover, MA)

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THE GOBBLER-1944 JOHNSON HIGH SCHOOL can be traversed, it must be discovered.” If we are to find the road to peace, we must first find the road to war and then travel in the opposite direction. Nationalism, power politics, fear, and revenge, were all causes of today’s war, which were themselves caused by selfishness and lack of understanding among nations. Each nation distrusted its neighbor, saw a threat to itself at the least advancement made by another country. This fear was an outgrowth of the unsympathetic attitude and the misunderstanding among nations. People of all nations wanted the same things—a home, security, money to spend, happi¬ ness. But each nation saw only its own people seeking these things. The peoples of other lands they saw as a threat to their own way of living, or as an odd, foreign group whose ways were strange to them and, therefore, to be condemned. We Americans today dismiss the problem of India with its many different tongues, races, creeds, political parties, and castes, as a complex question which will probably never be solved. Yet what would an Indian say of America with its Democrats, Republicans, Socialists, and Communists; its New Dealists and Anti-New Dealists; its Catholics, Jews, and Protestants; its Irishmen, Italians, Germans, Armenians, and Poles; its isolationists and internationalists? What unity could there be in a nation of such contrasting peoples? To India, we must be as great a riddle as she is to us, because neither of us ever stops to consider what the basic desires, needs, customs, and beliefs of the people are. The most serious problem after this war will be to persuade the outraged countries of Europe who have been the victims of brutality and atrocities at the hands of the Nazis that the Germans only in a quest for security and from a mistaken sense of outrage chose this horrible method of obtaining the one and satisfying the other. The first desire, security, is understandable and common to all, but the second, the desire for revenge caused by misunderstanding is precisely what we are trying to eliminate. If Germany is to be punished, she must be made to see that it is not because she sought security, but because in seeking security, she destroyed that of others. She distrusted France because she believed France was working against her. France distrusted her for the same reason, and each built up hard feelings against the other until Germany went to war to destroy what she thought was threatening her safety. This situation developed from the misunderstanding between the two nations. Be¬ cause a national boundary line separated them, each regarded the other as intrinsically different and alien. Instead of working together for their common ends, they grew apart and kindled new grudges and hatreds. We, as Americans, are surely the one nation of all others who should be able to lead the way in the field of mutual understanding and tolerance. America is a living, dynamic proof that boundary lines drawn on a map are not divisions between unlike groups of people; they are all imaginary lines drawn helter- skelter between peoples with similar aims and desires. It is the abiding principle of our American way of life that all men are created equal, that each is entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Under this principle, we have joined all the nationalities, religions, races, and beliefs in the world into one great nation and shown that it is possible for all groups—Armenians and Irish, 23

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THE GOBBLER-1944 JOHNSON HIGH SCHOOL with problems found in the United States, but also with those of other countries. This would lead to better understanding and co-operation among the nations of the world. The United States is going to hold a very important position at the peace table following the conclusion of this terrific holocaust. Momentous decisions must be made at the peace conference. Abraham Lincoln said in his Gettysburg Address that the government of the United States was “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Thus it is really the citizens of the United States who are to have this high responsibility. We, the American citizens and our representatives in the government, should start now to prepare ourselves to deal wisely with these problems. Many books have been written by authorities on these subjects and they are available for public consumption. There is a group of teen-age boys and girls at present who realize the need of preparation in this field. They have organized themselves under the name of Student Fed¬ eralists, and are working for a federal union of all nations when peace reigns again. This is an excellent step forward that American youth have taken. I would like to state another motto, that of the Boy Scouts—“Be Prepared.” Be prepared, America and Americans, for in preparation alone lies the strength to overcome our many perplexing problems and to be successful in our dealings with other countries and in our own personal lives. William N. Wilkinson, Jr. CLASS ESSAY Practical Idealism D MILLIONS of people the world over are looking forward to a post-war world of great scientific discoveries and economic improvements—air transports, £ television, helicopters, and many industrial inventions which will increase production and raise standards of living. We talk of reduced armaments and lowered tariff barriers; security from the cradle to the grave for workingmen and their families. Mr. Wallace would like to see a quart of milk per person per day on every doorstep in the world. Blueprints are being drawn for training, free of charge, enterprising youths of foreign nations in the building and administration of industry so that they may apply this knowledge to their native lands and help further the new prosperity. With all these modern marvels, how can we fail to keep the peace that is being won for us? There is much to applaud in this vision of the post-war world. Certainly a satisfied people are not disposed to quarrel with their neighbors; revolutions and wars grow from discontent with existing conditions. On the other hand, the wealthy home is not always happier than the poor one. Riches alone do not create happiness. It follows, then, that these material changes and improve¬ ments in themselves, though important, are not sufficient to bind the world together in such a way as to eliminate all possibilities of future aggression. As Lt. Col. W. F. Kernan has said, “Before the road to victory and peace 22

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THE GOBBLER-1944 JOHNSON HIGH SCHOOL Catholics and Jews, liberals and reactionaries—to live side by side with no great difficulty or embarrassment. Let us traverse the golden road to peace and happiness by making mutual trust and understanding the password to the new era, so that all nations, races, creeds, forms of government, and philosophies of life, may truly all be united in “One World.” Barbara L. Dandeneau VALEDICTORY New Horizons E ARE living in a modern world where science and invention accelerate the pace of all life. Change is the law of life. Resistance to change is a sin most implacably punished by nature. In a speech to the workers of a Nazi armament factory Hitler said that this is a war between two worlds. He is right. Inexorably, it is a war of annihilation between two worlds. It is a war between the Old World and the New World, not geographically, but spiritually. The Old World is the enslavement of the body, mind and soul of man. The New World is freedom. Without freedom of thought and its expression, science would not exist, and without science, we could not hope for man’s ultimate freedom. Since the dawn of history, and probably in prehistoric eras, men have struggled and died for freedom to know the truth, that others might be free. From the seed of liberty grew America. Scope was offered to the free play of man’s versatile and constructive genius. In a free Republic education is the real mother of invention. Today there are more students in American universi¬ ties and colleges than in all the universities and colleges of all the other nations of the world. Blest with great material resources, even in these recent times of economic perplexity, we have remained the best fed, the best housed, the best clad country in the world. Emergence of creative genius is relatively easy where all breathe the air of freedom. Man is an infinite reservoir of imagination, devo¬ tion and accomplishment. War—with all its destruction—is like a catalyzer that speeds a valuable reaction. From the rubble of destruction and the chaos of the present day, man must think in terms of constructive prescience. Research men agree that the conditions we cannot foresee now are the very ones most likely to develop. What sort of world lies just ahead, if the things that already exist in the laboratory can be brought into the practical realm of everyday life? Electronics, magic secret weapon of war now, will become a new wonderland for you at war’s end; there will be untold wonders of ingenuity and comfort, convenience and entertainment. Imagine cooking your roast in six seconds; leaving your windows open wide when it’s zero outside, yet heating your house electronically; phoning your wife while flying over China. You and electronics are opening upon a great future together—exciting, wondrous, full of delights. The scientist has been looking at many other aspects of our civilization— r J 24