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Search - Zero Hour - A Summons To The Free

Zero Hour A Summons To The Free
Author: Stephen Vincent Benet

ZKRO HOUR CONTENTS I. SIX OF US TALKING By STKPIIEN VINCBNT JiitNfrr page II. IX NT MAK. K THE SAMK MISTAKES By KKIKA MANN page III. TIIKY SAY IN THK XMJJKJKS . . . By Mt xtHtfii DuNtiy page 79 IV. I SAW IT IIAPPKN By WILLIAM I WIRTX pagt 117 V, WK MUST AUM By OAKMTT UNDKKIIILL pggt VI. THE FAITH OF AN AMERICAN By WALTM Mittn page 3 7 I SIX OF U... more »S TALKING STEPHEN VINCENT BEKET I SIX OF US TALKING THERE is a crisis in our national life and it is now It is not to morrow or the day after tomorrow but now. How long it will last, not one of us can say. But, while it lasts, it will touch the thoughts, the acts and the day-to-day lives of all of us. We have not been a complacent country not these last ten years. We have criticized ourselves for doing things even while we were doing them and, at times, produced the impression of a pair of Siamese twins, trying to go in several directions at once. All the same, we have been largely concentrated on our own internal problems and how to meet them. In spite of individual Cassandras, in spite of warnings from men in responsible posi tions, we have kept our eyes turned on our own back yard, not across the water. In spite of political yells from political extrem ists, we have a great many millions of us taken democracy for granted, not merely as a way of life but as the good way of life the one way of life for free and rational men Now that proposition has been challenged, not only passively but actively, not only by propaganda but by force. With a sense of incredulous shock, we have seen war shake the world again and a new world-revolution on the march. That was the first and understandable reactionshock, I know it was so in my own caseI think it was so with most 4 ZERO JtiOUJK. people old enough to remember anything of the last wan The thing had happened again that we hoped could never happen again, the crack in civilization, the ultimate evil, war. Not just wair in Ethiopia, war in Spain, war in Finland minor wars where we could sympathize appropriately with the losing side and form committees for their relief while they were being defeated but the big war that had lain like a black cloud at the back of our thinking for years. Still, it was Europes war. It couldnt touch us, except in our minds and our sympathies. And the right side would win, of course. The Nazi tanks were jaloppies and the Nazi planes ersatz. Mussolini was a sensible man, for a dictator, and wouldnt risk his brand-new empire in anything serious Stalin was play ing a deep game and the Nazi-Communist pact was really a triumph for socialism and peace. Do you recognize any of those phrases They were all said, and doubtless believed. They may seem a long way away, now. But they were all said. So, after the crushing of Poland, like Britain and France them selves we passed into a strange lull of mind. I recall the phrase phony war, spoken by supposedly responsible American states men. I remember a young and ardent Leftist explaining to me earnestly that it was all a put-up job on the part of the capitalist democracies. They werent fighting because they didnt mean to fight till they could turn on Russia. The historian of the futurewriting perhaps from a comfortable igloo at the North Polewill find nothing more singular, ominous and strange than that strange lull Then came May, the breaking of France, the wiping out of five free nations And, with a shock like that of winter in August, we began to realize as a nationnot just the government, not just a few SIX OF US TALKING 5 individuals, but as a nation that the totalitarian meant pre cisely what they said. They hated democracy and meant to wipe it out. They set war as the highest human activity and waged it with total force. They were ready and capable in using every means words, thoughts, ideas as well as tanks, guns, dive bombers...

ISBN-13: 9781406777659
ISBN-10: 140677765X
Publication Date: 3/15/2007
Pages: 252
Rating:

0 stars, based on 0 rating

Publisher: Nielsen Press
Book Type: Paperback
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

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