Orleans High School - Sword Yearbook (Orleans, VT)

Page 31 text:

promotes the work of Chinese students in America, the Phelps-Stokes Foundation, which has brought many African students here and the East-West Association, which emphasizes the importance of racial understanding, especially between Asiatic and Western peoples. The Rosenwald Foundation has sponsored in the South Negro schools in order to make up for the deficiencies of Southern Negro education. They have also helped to get better Negro housing and health projects in the North. The churches have helped to make people realize that ideas of race superiority or inferiority are un- Christian. There have been unions organized to promote inter- racial understandings. In our own country there have been riots in different cities caus- ed by race prejudice. There were the riots in Detroit and Chicago between the Negroes and the whites about two years ago. In the South the Negroes are put in a class by themselves. They have separate street cars and separate divisions in theatres. America is a democracy. Are we going to let race prejudice exist in this coun- try? Of course we are not. Because the United States is so power- ful and because there are racial difficulties to overcome in this coun- try, we should work to promote tolerance as much as possible. We should clean house and prepare for a better last half of the twentieth century. Then, we could put our hands to the building of the Unit- ed Nations and be sure of support from all races. Elaine Dean, ’45, Salutatorian. Valedictory THE AIR-AGE WORLD When the war has been brought to a successful close, both in Europe and the Pacific, we Americans will be entering a new world in which the development of wings for mankind will prove to be of greater importance than the inventions of the ship or the steam engine. Our country, our freedom, and our lives will be changed by the airplane. Everything we do, every plan which we make for the future will be affected by the airplane. Here are a few facts which may serve as a background for an understanding of Air Age progress. These facts are of such tre- mendous importance to civilization that the world which we are now making has been acclaimed the Air Age.” First, air is universal. Unlike the oceans of water, the air ocean reaches every home on earth. It is a universal highway which knows no boundaries or barriers like mountains, bridges or deserts. The airplane is free to go to any point on the earth regardless of any earthbound obstructions. Because of these barriers, the people have PAGE TWENTY-NINE

Page 30 text:

cans when brought up in this country. Race prejudice is a deter- mination to keep people down. It makes people cruel. It is the opposite of good character. All races have made their contributions to human knowledge. Those who have lived at the crossroads have invented most and those who have been isolated on islands or away from other people have lived content with the traditional methods of living. In the United States, there are people of different races and from different nations which makes it the greatest crossroads of the world. About every race is represented among our citizens. These races brought their own ways of cooking food so that our American diet is made up of about a dozen different racial contributions. Our salads came from the French and Italians, cranberries from Russia, vegetables from Italy, sea foods from the Mediterranean lands, and appetizers from the Scandinavian countries. At the same time, Americans have popularized ice cream, beefsteak, breakfast foods and corn on the cob. Machines have been made to take the place of hand skills which were brought here from every quarter of the world. If it hadn’t been for the skills of these different races, we wouldn’t have known how to do various things. It is the same way with music and building patterns. Race prejudice is not an old subject. It is hardly a hundred years old. Before that, people persecuted Jews because of their religion instead of their blood. It is not our custom any more to k.ll a man because he has a different religion. Today, weak nations are afraid of strong nations; the poor are afraid of the rich; the nch are afraid they will lose their riches. People are afraid of each other’s political power. Freedom from such fear is the only cure for race prejudice. The Russian nation has shown how race prejudice can be driven out of a country made up of many kinds of people. Instead of letting the people change their minds, they made racial discrimination illegal. They welcomed different customs and dress of many tribes. People that were backward were helped to catch up with the more forward people. The people were helped to develop their own ways and in time the interchange of customs was practiced until each group became a part of the whole. The racial problem has had a greater success in Russia than any other program. What can be done about the race problem? The only way to change the Germans and Japanese is to change the environment of the countries. This can be done by sending books and teachers to these countries. Immigrants from European countries who have learned the American ways can return to their own country and spread the American ways. One other way to help solve this prob- lem is by the interchange of business clubs and trade unions between nations. The United States has quite a number of organizations that are working for race equality such as the China Institute, which PAGE TWENTY.EI G HT

Page 32 text:

crowded along the sea coasts, leaving the interiors of the countries undeveloped. The vast resources of the continental interiors of Africa, South America and Asia remain to be developed by air transportation. Many seaports will diminish in importance as air- planes replace ships. Towns at the junctions of air routes will boom. Already new air centers are emerging, such as Wichita, Edmonton, Minneapolis, Fairbanks. From earliest times down to the present, physical boundaries or barriers have separated people. As civilization has progressed, these barriers have caused such difference in people that they result- ed in regionalism and nationalism. There are now such extreme variations in languages that it is impossible for us to talk in other tongues without difficulty. No longer will we have to witness sep- arations of people, for universality has come with the airplane. Th is world we live in today has been developed by surface transportation and communication. Seventy-five per cent of the people in the world live in cities served by sea commerce such as New York, London, Bombay, and San Francisco. These famous ports and centers are beginning to lose their traditional importance for people are now beginning to realize the importance of decentraliza- tion. Decentralization is said to be a necessity in the Air Age. It is required by military security that we have no highly centered industry, and population must be spread out so that we can defend ourselves. Another fact to remember is the airplane’s ability to travel at high speed. Yesterday ships sailed thirty miles an hour. Our relationships with other peoples were based on days. Today air- planes fly at 250 miles per hour. Our relationships with other peo- ples are based on hours. There is no spot on the globe that is more than sixty hours’ flying time from your local airport. They tell us that the vacationist with little money and not many days to spare may visit far-off places like the battlefields of the present war, or the glaciers of Alaska, or tropical islands. Places as far away as China and Japan may be visited in a two weeks’ vacation. To show how the transportation routes are shortened by the airplane, here are a few statistics: the sea route from Seattle to Calcutta is 12,000 miles; the air distance is only 7,225 miles; from San Francisco to Liverpool, it is 8,000 miles by ship, 5,200 miles by air. A cargo plane can make twenty-five trips while a freighter is making one. This proves that the world is shrinking because of the plane. Speed can be sold, just like a commodity. A letter may be of more value when sent by air rather than rail; a business man can be helped by speed of the airplane. Speed is also of great value when it gives us something which we would not otherwise have. For example, fresh-picked vegetables and tree-ripened fruit may reach us by air transportation. PAGE THIRTY