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OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF PERTH.
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444, Cfr
ESTABLISHED 1874. 'PHONE B6950 430 Hay Street,
Registered at the G.P.O., Perth, for transmission by last as a news paper. NO. 2,46.
PERTH, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19,
"'-.41Milidk°
1948.
PRICE THREEPENCE
Perth, Box A35, G.P.O., Perth.
SEVENTY-THIRD YEAR
By the Light of the Bomb Gnawing Fear in the Hearts of Millions
Fallacy of a Peace Based on Strong -Arm Rule Derangement of Thoughts and the Dangers it Evokes By JOHN S. KENNEDY, in "Columbia."
Freedom from fear was one of ror of Dachau and Buchenwald, ginating in the human mind and the objectivles for the past -war for these things must be experienc- the human will and are superimworld contained in the Atlantic ed at first hand if they are to be posed on the still docile forces of Charter of 1941. The Charter was apprehended in anything but the nature by human intent and hua statement, not of promises but vaguest and most fragmentary man choice. To fear simply and of aims, calculated to make the manner. But, remote and dull exclusively because of the atomic strongest appeal to the hearts of though our appreciation of the tomb is like fearing Niagara Falls, men the world over. Hiroshima and Nagasaki necessar- because an enemy may hurl us Atter a War, a New Fear. ily was, a sense of dread did infil- into the cataract. The basic fear Hence the vision of an existence trate and permeate our souls. This should, obviously, be directed at free of fear was something sure could be done to us. This type the enemy, not at the roaring to strike fire in the imaginations of warfare could be used against waters. Men are still free; men of millions, for it expressed a long- us. The secret of the atomic are still in command of human afing felt by men in every land, bomb was not inviolable and fairs (always, of course, under men who were chilled and shaken could not long be kept. to time, God, who never acts against the by the actuality or the hovering all nations could and would have genuine interests of man; men are threat of insecurity, of expulsion atomic bombs, perhaps more de- still the masters of nature; men from their native earth, of starva- structive than ours. The incid- can still decide whether there will tion, of physical violence, of death. ence of war would no longer be be war or peace, tranquillity or To be delivered from fear, once dependent on such readily ascer- fiery chaos. and for all, what a glorious pros- tained factors as wealth, natural The unearthly light attendant pect! resources, armaments, and man- on the explosion of the atomic The war is now over, although, power, The balance of power bomb illuminated man's present as the Holy Father said in his would be abolished; and the im- situation for those not utterly witChristmas eve allocution, peace has portance of alliances would lessen. less, and thus performed a connot come. Has the fear, which War would no longer come as a siderable incidental good even as for so long paralysed the sadden- long -gathering storm, with the sky it wrought an incalculatie harm. ed human beings, been eliminat- darkening by succeksive stages For it exploded the radically false ed? Has it appreciably diminish- and the thunder heard first afar ideas out of which the statesmen ed? Are there grounds for be- and then nearer and nearer, but la purely courtesy title) proposlieving that it will soon be routed would burst upon us like lightning ed, in their contumacious folly or even mitigated? The answer, out of sunlit heavens. It would and seeming inability to learn anyin every case, would seem to be he all over in a few hours-with a thing from the most hideous war "No." Fear has not been ban- country tranquil and prosperous in history, to construct a state of ished because its causes have not at noon, smashed to dust and de- peace. The peace, as they enbeen removed. populated before evening. visioned it, was to be a matter of Actually, with the war ended, PILLAR OF DESTRUCTION OVER NAGASAKI, strong-arm rule, the dominance Fear of Bomb Is Secondary. there is a new kind and a new and, indeed, dictatorship of the degree of fear prevalent. This There is nothing pathological victorious great powers, a thing of Quite the reverse. They feel a ity. :1ctually it is of immediate stems from what happened at about the imagination which con- numbers and poossessions and sword -edged fear such as has importance. Men cannot choose Hiroshima and Nagasaki last Aug- jures up a picture of dreadful de- strategic positions, and all the rest never before affected them. It is aright and act aright unless they ust. I mean, of course, the re- solation in place of the familiar of it. In other words, it was to not the panic of the ignorant or think aright. Individual or colvelation and the use of the atomic nighbourhood scene. This hap- be a continuation of the war, a the relatively ignorant, not the lective action stems from convicbomb. When first our radios and pened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, new phase of the war, superficially consternation of the uncritical tion. We are and we do not what newspapers told us of the exist- It can happen anywhere. It can hut not essentially different from reader of sensational stories con- we think. How are we thinking ence and the dropping of the happen here. Hence the fear the military phase. This repre- cerning the atomic bomb in the at the present time? Let me cite atomic bomb, we thought little of gnawing in the brains and in the sented the most abject confession Sunday supplement. Rather. it three examples of intellectual myit, for we did not grasp what was breasts of countless humans in of intellectual and moral bank- is a fear arising from a keen reaopia or confusion. involved. We very likely consid- every clime. But it obtained. lisation of men's absolute unpreruptcy. The first is the resolute refusal ered this new weapon different I submit, however, that fear of As the war ended, however, a paredness to meet the challenge to recognise the character and the from, say, the blockbuster not sub- the atomic bomb, though readily Marxbegan at Hiroshima and Na- and the opportunity of the new implications of Marxism. stantially, but in accidentals. comprehensible, is secondary for shock age, with its alternative of specThinking peo- gasaki and spread with unabated tacular progress through the bene- ism is the official doctrine of the Then, gradually, and with grow thinking people. Soviet Union; it inspires all Soforce, to the minds of the perspicain,,; perturbation, we understood ple, it is true, are stirred by the and viet thought and informs all Socious and the honest, thousands of ficent use of atomic power something of the revolutionary possibility of atomic terror strikthe nihavoc through nightmarish viet action. Apologists for Stalin miles removed from, the Japanese character of the atomic bomb. ing themselves and their dear ones islands. Approval of a false, hilistic abuse of atomic power. have been saving without pause However dimly, however impre- and by the ghastly prospect of our all indicathat, from They perceive that the llrxist phase of Soviet patchwork peace had now been cisely, we realised that a new era civilisation's vaporisation, with prepared history is over or nearly over. rendered as absurd as trust in an tions, men are not at all in science and invention had be- all its concrete symbols and elofor the morally and intellectually an That is not what Stalin says. umbrella to protect one from gun. And we sensed that, de- quent monuments (cathedrals, libFor the old concep- epoch that has dawned, that Throughout the sear, when things air raid. storied, art, proud, great raries, spite all its marvellous possibilican were most desperate for the Sotions and conditions of war had atomic power in their hands ties for good, it had begun most and lovely cities) wiped out with- been as surely and just as totally be very much like a tommygun in viet Union, he repeatedly and unpeothinking But trace. pulverout a the inauspiciously-with demolished as had the homes, the the hands of a stupid. and vicious equivocally reaffirmed the supremwhich acy of unadulterated Marxism and ising of large cities and the an- ple realise that atomic warfare is churches, the public buildings in adolescent. And it is this nihilation of thousands upon thou- not, like a hurricane, a tidal wave, IIiroshima and Nagasaki. "Awak- underlies and feeds their fear. It his regime's fidelity to it. sands of people. A discovery of epo- or a comet crashing earthward, an en and act or perish"-this was is this which makes their fear at Marxism is materialistic; it de chal proportions had been used instance of nature gone berserk, nies the very possibility of the the message spelled out by the once sober and sharp. for indiscriminate mass slaugh- but rather of man gone mad. pillar of purple fire, 10,000 What are some of the grounds spiritual. Consequently it is atheIn the atomic bomb, nature has "giant ter, something unprecedented in feet high," over the vanished Jap- for the fear which the thinking istic. It eliminates God and relithe annals of science. The atomic not revolted, defied our control, anese cities. gion. Let no one regard Stalin's person feels to -day? age opened with the snuffing out turned on us to rend us and blot of a serWhen I say that thinking people First, there is the intellectual opportunistic tolerance The full hor- us out. Atomic energy is not of countless lives. vile state church, eminently useful we something evil and ruinous in it- do not fear the atomic bomb as blindness and perversion which ' ror' of Hiroshima and Nagasaki of other couninvasion This may for political shall never know, any more than self. Rather, it is good in itself. such, I do not mean that think- are so widespread. Page realon 13.) (Continued everyday fear. of from fret remote orito -day seem ing people are elements hot.are ruin The evil, the we shall ever know the full .
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