Anticipating Bridge Crossing

As was inevitable, there has already be. gun a debate as to the kind of peace that shall follow the war; and so long as it does not hamper the war work directly or indirectly it is no doubt not amiss that this talk go on. In a way it may seem like counting the chickens before they are hatched, but it is probably better to assume that they will be hatched as a matter of course than it would be to wail over the process as so problematical as to be a matter of doubt. Besides such debate permits the cleansing of many bosoms of much perilous stuff. In the broadcast sowing of idealistic seed it is certain that much of it will fall on stony ground where speedily it must wither away because it hath no deepness of earth; but one suspects that here and there a kernel will fall upon good ground and will germinate therein for the betterment of the future.

But it is imperative that our eagerness to win the peace as well as the war be not permitted to blind us to the first and great commandment that we win the war. Unless we do win it, our speculations as to the world after the war will be in vain because we shall then have nothing to say about it. Doubt has been expressed that premature emphasis of ideals is an unmitigated blessing, in that it may lead us, as it did before, to be content with merely scotching the serpent without killing it. "We learn nothing from history save that men learn nothing from history"; but at least there can be no excuse for a repetition of the mistakes of 1919, whereby were sown the seeds which brought forth the harvest of horror within twenty years of the time when men told themselves that they had ended war forever. This time the job must be finished. The last spark must be extinguished and there must be no heaps of fuel left handy for the start of another conflagration. Above all, one is told, there must be adequate apparatus provided to deal with any future conflagration in its incipiency. Well and good. That's doubtless all true. But the first and essential thing is to win the war, and win it "totally" beyond mistake.