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Show We won the battle behind the lines with the (Fourteen (Points. That we did not win the peace was due not to the cleverness of others but to our own stupidity. We have learned that no nation liveth -unto-itself alone that because be-cause we tried to live alone, walking walk-ing out on- the world, we had to pass through a, period of distress before we could again have a chance to help establish the kind of world'" in which ' we want to live. ,'" A lesson came out of the last' war. -We . havei;been'. long in learning learn-ing it and pure-education has been costly but-"we can at last say, in the words of Kipling after another-war, another-war, "Let us admit it fairly as a business people should. We have had no end of a less6n.' It will do us no end of good." The Lesson By RUTH TAYLOR Most people talk about the last war as though nothing came out of it. They forget that there was time before the First World war, and that that sanguinary struggle ..changed their lives completely. iDebt, depression, new quarrels in "place of old, broken lives, disjoint- ed relationships, these came out of " the war -but so did idealism, awak- -ened social conscience, a broadening broaden-ing of knowledge, of opportunity, a self-determination of individuals. But the ral benefit from the -last war was the lesson we have 'slowly learned, and which it has taken this war to bring home. As a man suddenly wakens to the meaning of what he studied as a child, so we as a nation are just coming to realize what we learned in the holocaust a quarter of a century ego the lesson which, if had we put its precepts into prac- tice, might have given the world a peace lasting long enough to prove the futility of war. We have learned that patriotism is not measured by power; that love of country thrives on oppression oppres-sion and that a man will fight more zealously for his faith than for his possession. We have learned that we are not the only people, that there are no Herrenvolk except in their own eyes, but the aristocracy among nations consists of those who are willing to take responsibility for protecting the rights of the weak. We have learned that we can't solve a problem by ignoring it, that what menaces the freedom of some menaces the freedom of all We have learned never again to stop a fight before it is won and not to be maudlin with those whc come whining for mercy when they are losing, but who are merciless when their side is on top. We have learned to beware those who never stand on their own actions, ac-tions, but who always seek scapegoats, scape-goats, who always have an ' alabi ready when they are 'caught. We have learned that more powerful pow-erful than "invading armies" "" is the power of hope for-rtheriuture. |