Walter Russell Bowie
The New York Times Magazine

The truth is that wars are not won by dosing people up with a lot of synthetic hatred. They can be effectively lost that way, as Hitler will find out. This nation had better take its chance of winning, not by glandular virus, but by clear thinking, positive purpose, and intelligently disciplined will.

After the war, then what? Will the overthrow of Hitler and the Japanese war lords amount to anything? Will the accomplishment of that, and only that, be worth this war's horrible cost? Of course not. Their overthrow would at best do no more than clear the ground— clear the ground upon which slowly we may begin to shape the fabric of a world order conceived and built according to those principles of justice and human consideration which alone could make it fit to last. That kind of world cannot be created by men still stupid and truculent with the hangovers of deliberate hating. It will require men whose souls have been big enough to keep sober in a maddened time.

Sometimes we can see the truth when we get it in perspective— see the truth which we might not see at all when it is blurred by our own near passions. The real dignities of the mind and heart emerge, and other things which might have seemed desirable are revealed as near indecency.

We need men "with malice toward none, with charity for all," who shall be big enough in spirit to show us how to deserve, and then to create, "a just and lasting peace among all nations." For this great task which will confront us, we may well listen to the words which Philip Gibbs, most discerning among the front-line correspondents wrote as he surveyed the first World War:

"Let us exorcise our own devil? and get back to kindness toward all men of good will.... Let us seek the beauty of life and God's truth somehow, remembering the boys who died too soon....By blood and passion there will be no healing. We have seen too much blood. We want to wipe it out of our eyes and souls."

Rev. L. B. Ashby
Daily Telegraph, London

There are few facts more disturbing to contemplate than the persistence of human cruelty.

Just one thing is plain—that it is useless to look to the march of civilization to eliminate cruelty from the heart of man, for civilization stands revealed as the merest superficial veneer, concealing none too well something ugly and sinister which lies beneath it.

If we are to continue to look for a world wherein dwelleth mercy, we have clearly no hope of finding it anywhere else than in some purely spiritual force.

A nation must think twice before it allows religion to decay. There have been signs recently of an outbreak of juvenile cruelty in this country, and that should remind us of the supreme importance of religious teaching for the young. Is it not possible that already we are seeing signs which point to the results of inadequate and ineffective religious instruction in our elementary education?

One can think of no greater disaster than that this temperamentally kind-hearted nation of ours should begin to unlearn its traditional love of mercy and its ready compassion for all that are weak and helpless.

New York Herald-Tribune

A "Christian charter" for the post-war world was presented by John Foster Dulles, a New York lawyer, who is chairman of the council's Commission to Study the Bases of a Just and Durable Peace.

As approved by the commission, the charter set forth "guiding principles regarding the moral, political, and economic foundations of an enduring peace," summarized as follows:

Moral law undergirds our world.

Disregard of the moral law brings affliction.

Revenge and retaliation bring no relief.

We must find a way to bring into ordered harmony the interdependent life of the nations.

This requires that economic resources be looked upon as a trust to promote the general welfare.

Also, because the world is living and, therefore, changing, there must be ways of effecting peaceful change.

A supreme responsibility rests upon the church of Christ.

Christians ... must seek that the kingdoms of the world become the kingdom of Christ.

Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America The New York Times

We recognize that never before in history has there been so widespread a provocation to hatred. Nevertheless, if that hatred is deliberately fomented and spread until it becomes the emotion that predominantly determines how the United Nations will act, then the forces of evil will have won their greatest victory—and it will be impossible for mankind to achieve a just and durable peace.

The council called on Christians to reject all desire for vengeance; to seek God's forgiveness for any hatred we may harbor; and, without shrinking from the harshest duty imposed upon us by our conscience under God, to remain ever mindful that He alone may say, "Vengeance is mine; I will repay."

Rev. John Walter Houck
The New York Times

Hatred cannot contribute to the winning of the war or a permanent peace. It is love, trust, devotion to human needs of all peoples that will hasten the victory of our armed forces and the achievement of a peace that honors the best in all people of all races, nations, creeds, and colors.

The religion on the fighting fronts is based upon the expansive ideals that unify the forces and dignify human personality. The home altars must be the inspiration of the best known in all religions so that our boys can and will return to the home churches and feel at home in God's house.

"Uncle Dudley"
The Boston Daily Globe

It should be with a chastened spirit that this generation sets itself to discuss and think through the difficult questions which the end of fighting will present. These are complicated in the extreme. To move toward their solution will require patience, determination, and clear heads. It will become necessary to forget partisanship and to put sectionalism aside. The mistakes of the past, viewed dispassionately, will be of immense profit, but there must be no yielding to any hankering for recrimination.

The desire to be constructive must be widespread. Only so is there reasonable chance of contributing to the upbuilding of the diverse institutions that human beings have worked out to fit various conditions all over the map.

Charles C. Merrill
Boston Herald, Massachusetts

If we fight this war in a spirit of hatred, and if we try to make a peace in the same spirit, we shall have another war on our hands, I predict, in twenty or thirty years. The way of hatred is not the way of intelligence, nor is it the way that brings any permanently beneficial result.

Two Rivers Reporter
Wisconsin

Thoughtful people believe they see the beginnings not only of victory for men and nations of good will, but of a new era and enlightenment beyond any the world has known.

God grant that they are right! It can be so, if people strive not only with arms, but heads and hearts and clear vision, to make it so.