Queens College - Silhouette Yearbook (Queens, NY)

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I F Vs ul Sd d. eel md E00 JOHN J. THEOBALD, Ph.D. Presidenf of Queens College 21

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HE Class of 1951 leaves Queens College at C1 time When The tensions of world Crisis have apparently reached' a peak. Reluctantly, our Amer- ican people have come to realize that the only immediate hope for maintaining peace lies in the development of military strength to give pause to a brutish and bullying foe. Obvious as the need for this military emphasis is, it should also, be re- membered that armed might alone can, at best, result only in armed truce. Military victory, despite its cost, is no ultimate guarantee of peace. We must therefore find additional means to achieve this end. In the final analysis, lasting peace will come only as the result of a firm code of moral and ethical standards. A love of fellow man which supercedes even displeasure at his actions. A determination to be more concerned with doing our best than with whether or not the other fellow is doing his according to our standards. A basic readiness to evaluate others by what they do rather than by who they are or who their forebears were, and the ability to resolve differences in an atmosphere of mutual trust and good will. 1 This is no simple formula. It can be violated even when one is motivated by noblest intent. We may well be failing most to measure up to its exact- ing standards at the very time when righteous determination makes us feel we are serving best. It is, however, the only answer to the total peace and security which we all seek. lt is the challenge of your generation. You can succeed where those before have failed. The time has come when we place the future in your hands. We do so with the greatest of confidence. Good luck and God bless you all. John J. Theobald 20

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greet you, Seniors of 1951, in a mood of reminiscence. Ten years ago this month our first class was graduated, and, today, memories grave and gay-tender, proud, and wistful-throng my recollection of our beginnings at Queens-and of all that has happened since-in the world, in the Col- lege, and in the lives of the thousands of alumni with whom you are now to be num- bered. The decade closes at a point of crisis- a word dramatized by an ancient people in symbols of danger and opportunity. You have in your day a full measure of both- a greater measure, indeed, than did the Class of 1941, who, shadowed through their college years by the threat of war, marked in that first Silhouette the grim uncertainties of their time. To learn how to think, they wrote is hard. To apply our thinking in an irrational world, iS harder still. And they closed their class book with a question. Had they learned their lesson well enough? Would they Send their children into a saner world? lt was easy for you, the men and women of '51, to answer that question in dis- illusion and cynical doubt. Ten years 090 as children in elementary school, hearing talk of Pearl Harbor, and long afterwards, of V-Day, and J-Day, and then of the United Nations with its chartered vow to build in the minds of men the defense Of peace, you held assurances of a secure and challenging future. Today, as college graduates, after years of continuing Un'