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Page 21 text:
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'What Wind?' By MARY ALICE EDSON Out in Amarillo, Texas, a few days ago, or it might have been Oshkosh, Wis., or Middletown, U. S. Af-ea little man was buffeting a windstorm. Huddled inside his big overcoat, the little man, obviously a stranger clutched at a nearby rock wall to steady himself against the fury of the gale that nearly swept him off his feet. Pausing for a breathless moment, the small stranger suddenly glanced up to meet the cool gaze of a big, raw-boned, open-faced fellowein shirt sleeves-leaning nonchalantly against the wall. Do you always have such winds here? panted the little man. The big one regarded him for a fleeting second, and then calmly drawled, What wind Y Are we Americans today little men or big men? Are we scarcely able to withstand even the vagaries of a erinricious breeze. or are we capable of taking in our stride the big gales as well as the little breezes? I am wondering if we Americans have not been diminishing in stature, rather than developing into really big men. For too long it seems, we have let ourselves be shunted about by the whimsical breezes as well as the fiercer wliirlwinds. It is time we stopped drifting-time we planted our feet firmly on the ground, not to be so easily swayed. The most disastrous wind to sweep our country from shore to shore started as a deceitful little thing. It bore on its wings that glorious word, Peace, and that fooleo us. We thought rather smugly, At last we can be free to pursue our own happiness as we will. We will let the rest of the world alone and it will let us alone. On December seventh, suddenly and without warning that deceitful little breeze boomeranged like a tornado. Bewilderecl, we wondered what had hit us. But it took that tornado to awaken the vast majority of usfto make us realize once and for all that not in this world can you live alone and like it. Oh, we always knew what it was we wanted. We wanted to be free to want the kind of world we want, which, conversely, would be a free world. We had been looking for a non-existent, impractical Utopia-with freedom, yes, freedom from responsibility. We had failed to realize that such freedom was in actuality, virtual slavery. Slavery is nothing more nor less than a free- dom from responsibility. It involves only the necessity of doing what one is told to do by some one else, W9 thought we could make our America a feather-bed where freedom could snooze till the cows came home. Well, il' it was going to be that kind of freedom, it might have been just as well to let it snooze. That wasn't the kind that would do anybody else any good anyway. And that is where we made our mistake. We had forgotten who we were. We had become so wrapped up in material istic things that we had forgotten that originally and essentially our nation was the one alone, of all nations founded on ideals transcending class, caste, or race. We had forgotten that our way of life with its high standard of livingethe highest in the worlde--had been pioneered by a nation of inherently big men, who were not to be turned back by any wind. Then suddenly that tornado struck with the full force of its bitter truth: that our way of lifeeeour precious way of life that we had so jealously tried to keep for ourselves aloneeewas the actual stake in this war game. We hadn't even known that we were players in the game. Deceived as we had been by the winds of a selfish peace and of an imprudent isolationism, it was hard for us to grasp the full import of this unexpected turn of events. Now at last, slowly, painfully, but surely, we are emerging from our complacency. We are beginning to realize just how far we had drifted from the shores of our land-not forgetting that it was there, but forget ting that it was more than just a piece of map shaped like a wisdom tooth and colored like a handful of lolli- pops. We were proud of all the smokestacks and railroad trains, all the gold in all the counting houses and all the Boulder Dams, electric lights, high bridges, grain mills and jazz bands. We believed that was the whole show. It was a good one all right, and it really drew the crowds across the seas. They laughed. and were entertained and amused: then they kept on laugh- ing-up their sleeves. They looked at all that window trimming and thought it was the real thing. For a long time, we betrayed ourselves with the same delusion. To Be Permanent, that freedom must NOT be a free- dom from responsibility, but one WITH responsibility To be communicable that freedom must first be vital to us. To be consummated, that freedom must not be something we take for granted-keno: we have to fight for it and keep ite-keep it for those who come after us, as those who came before passed it on to us. Knowing and comprehending fully that responsibility, we will be able to rediscover the basic ideal that we cherished so dearly in the beginning. Without sacrificing any of that ideal, we can still keep our heads, not in, but above the clouds. With eyes wide open to any de- teriorations, dangers, or destructions, from winds either native or foreign. We can keep our feet planted firmly on the ground. We must be big men able to defy all chance breezes that may come our way: able to steer an unhindered course through seething squalls: able to gaze steadfastly into the very teeth of the storm and to say, cooly and calmly, What Wind?
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Page 22 text:
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