Smug, Slothful, Asleep?

Mrs. Roosevelt said--she was talking about Pearl Harbor--that official mistakes only reflected the people. Senator Walsh, tireless foe of smugness, spoke of the "general smugness of the American people." "In too many instances," said Connecticut's Senator Maloney, "our people are concluding that the war is won and that there is no great danger or difficulty ahead." Yes, said the New York Times's military expert Hanson Baldwin, "we are slothful with fat pride."

Last week these wordly-wise politicians, newspapermen, experts, used such emotional terms to describe what was wrong with the people. There had been nothing quite like it in U.S. political history. Many a time in the past newspapers had run a thundering headline over some smaller attack on some smaller group: TAMMANY FLAYED BY REFORMER, or SENATORS FLAY BIG BUSINESS. But if last week's attacks, complaints, warnings, exhortations, condemnations of the people were boiled down to one headline, it would read: THE PEOPLE FLAYED.

"The general public . . ." said General Johnson, "simply does not seem to give a tinker's dam. . . ."

Even the executive head of Civilian Defense joined in the outcry. Said James Landis:

"The greatest trouble with civilian defense is that people have not awakened to the fact that the United States is at war."

William Batt, Director of Materials for the War Production Board, told an audience gloomily: "Not since the days of the Revolution have we had much of a chance to lose a war. We have a chance to lose this one."

By & large the people seemed unaffected by this universal obloquy, however darkly their critics talked. When the Gallup Poll asked, Do you think the United States is doing all it can toward winning the war? some 78% offhandedly answered: Yes.

From Boston to Seattle the story was about the same. The U.S. people were working--nobody could deny that. They were awake--Pearl Harbor had done that.

They were not content with themselves--the letters to the editor, the complaints about the way the war was going, the arguments were all proof of that. Reporters in general agreed on the main points --that the people were doing what was necessary, that they showed little excitement about the war. Cars were being put away, tires were being given up (Cleveland and Chicago did not exhaust their quotas), busses and streetcars were taking the place of taxis. The lack of outward expressions of excitement was so obvious a fact that all sorts of theories were developed to explain it. It was because the U.S. still viewed the war as a spectacle, said Edward Murrow, CBS commentator, winding up a coast-to-coast tour: "as spectators with an inadequate understanding of our own responsibility." But even as spectators, the U.S. people were so silent that other explanations were necessary.

It was said that the war was a professional's war, and civilians recognized that it was their duty to keep out of the way. It was also said that not until March 15, when income taxes would write the date in red, would the people know what they were up against. Some believed, like Walter Lippmann, that most of the average man's sense of remoteness from the war was explained by the fact that the only man who could explain the war news to them--the President--was not doing it. Or it was argued that the war was so vast that individual U.S. citizens could not hope to comprehend it, and were now pondering, bemused, while their radios warned them against complacency and their spokesmen chided them for their indifference.

Whatever was wrong with the people's attitude toward the war, it was apparent that the attitude of their critics was not going to help them figure out the war for themselves. Said Edward Murrow: "Somehow, it's impossible to escape the conclusion that we do not yet understand the dominant position of the United States in world affairs. We have not yet acquired the habit of world leadership. Some of us are reluctant to accept the greatness that has been thrust upon us, but we have no choice. . . .

"Had you been with me for the last month wandering about our country, you would agree that we are prepared to make . . . sacrifices, but you might feel, as I do, that we do not fully appreciate the need for speed, that we do not quite understand that if we delay too long in winning the victory we will inherit nothing but a cold, starving embittered world. . . . Already there are signs that we're coming to accept slavery and suppression as part of the pattern of living in this year of disgrace. . . . There is the danger that we may become brutalized. . . ."

A new world was being created, and it must be the U.S. people who would have the principal hand in creating it. All they could be sure they saw at present was the chaos. And no amount of threats or tall talk would help them to see, in the need for world leadership, their inescapable opportunity.

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