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EDITORIAL COMMENTTHE INEVITABLE HAS HAPPENEDThe unprovoked attack of Japan on Americanpossessions simply marked the occurrence of the inevitable. For many months, most authorities have been convinced that we could not avoid formal participation in the war that now engulfs all the continents The big question was when and where the spark would be ignited. The Japanese militarists, spurred by their Axis comrades, have answered that question for us and for the world.The American people enter this war with a sense of grim and bitter necessity. No thinking man wants war. it is to the great credit of our government that it did everything possible, within the bounds of our national honor and interests, to maintain peace. Thateffort failed through no-fault of those who administerour governmental affairs. It failed because the ruthless conquerors of our time are bent on world domination. Nothing less can satisfy them. It is all or nothing. And so, at last, the democratic world is allied in arms against the totalitarian world in the greatest war history has ever known.Here in America the task is clear. The American people will support their government to the limit, andthey will make whatever sacrifices prove necessary.I he issue of intervention versus non-intervention is as dead as last year’s news. The isolationist leaders displaying that patriotism which characterizes all true Americans, however different their opinions have pledged their full support to the President and the nation. From this time on, it is the job of all to show the world that a free America is more than a match for any adversary.The soldiers and the sailors who fight in this war carry into battle a traditional freedom. They are not the unthinking, “heiling” subjects of a dictator. They are not slaves, living and dying like puppets at the7 1 °/ 2 master- Tlley have been reared in thefreest of all great nations, under the ideals which Lin-coljn,ca]led' “The last, best hope of earth.” They knowwhat they are fighting for. They know how preciousneedom is. And they know the sorrowful truth thatblood must be shed if freedom is to be preserved.Back of the fighting men of America will be aproduction machine unparalleled on earth. Labor andindustry will not shirk the gigantic task that time and circumstance have given it. The price of failure would be the death of freedom. The days ahead will be hard and bitter, but no one can doubt what the ?ld wil1 be-victory for freedom, for a wayof life that respects the dignity of man.It is all there in one word—freedom. Freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of worship, freedom of enterprise. These are what we possess, and theseforever ^ fighting 1:0 cavs and to perpetuatethJaAmerican industry is ready for this war. Go down the roster of our great private enterprises-the rail-,tp0Wef s‘vstems the steel mills, the motor makers, the coal and metal mines, the oil wells and refining plants, the airplane factories and the rest. American enterprise represents a veritable miracle of preparedness. And now the tempo of production will be stepped up again and again. There can be no88 USUal ” “strikes as usual” “politics as usual, from now on.Let there be no despair. Let there be instead, uncompromising determination. War has been forced on us. It has been forced on us by a nation to whichiV»e«sniv-red firm “hip-economic cooperation, aideverything, in short, except the nght to pillage and destroy and conquer. Nowom enemies will learn how free men, backed by thelimitless resources of our free enterprise system, canacquit themselves in battle.OiloraXhave de
Newspaper Details
McKean County Democrat
Smethport, Pennsylvania, US
Thu, Dec 18, 1941
Page 2
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
NA, 18 Feb 2021
Other Publications Near Smethport, Pennsylvania
McKean County Journal
Smethport McKean Citizen
Smethport McKean Miner
Smethport M Kean Miner
Smethport Forester and Smethport Register
