"Good Luck, Mr. Byrnes"

Some 3,000 well-wishers, among them the President, gathered at Washington National Airport to see Secretary of State Byrnes off to the Paris Peace Conference. Said Mr. Truman: "The country is behind Mr. Byrnes in his efforts to get a just peace for the world. . . . Good luck, Mr. Byrnes."

Mr. Byrnes climbed into the President's plane, the Sacred Cow, and soared off. He would need luck. Once more the U.S. and Russia were meeting at the council table, and once again it would be a meeting between political enemies, not friends. U.S. weapons: its military potential, the atomic bomb, the moral force of its people.

Awful Responsibility. What was the moral force behind Jimmy Byrnes? How deeply had it impressed Russia and the world? One answer was contained in the record of U.S. behavior at the end of the first year of the Atomic Age, which Harry Truman had ushered in with the words: "It is an awful responsibility which has come to us."

The U.S. earnestly wanted peace. It had gone hell-bent into peacetime. It had dissipated its military power, despite its Chief of Staff's warning: "We have tried since the birth of our nation to promote our love of peace by a display of weakness. This course has failed us utterly, cost us millions of lives and billions of treasure."

Strikes had swept the country. The President's attempt to bring management and labor together in conference ended in fiasco. Walter Reuther shut down General Motors, Phil Murray shut down steel, and by January there were more people on strike than ever before in U.S. history. On April Fool's Day John Lewis shut the soft coal mines and the next month Messrs. Whitney & Johnston stopped the railroads.

Always a Crisis. Congress had shown indecision and small courage, ducked unpleasant decisions (e.g., the draft law extension, fair employment practices, a minimum wage, OPA) when it could. The people of Mississippi were glad to send a mountebank back to represent them in the Senate for six more years. Congressman Andrew Jackson May, chairman of the House Military Affairs Committee and loudest voice in military matters, was accused of having aided wartime profiteers and chiselers.

The prestige of the President, on the crest at the beginning of the Atomic Year, fell like a spent rocket. His appointments were widely criticized. He plaintively observed: "There is always a crisis." Labor, which had helped put him, in office, shouted: "Down with Truman."

August justices of the Supreme 'Court, split with feuds, shrilled at one another like fishwives. Said Justice Jackson: "I told Justice Black . . . that I would not stand for any more of his bullying."

Bricks & Stripes. In Markowitz' saloon in Kansas City a laundry-truck driver sipped a beer. What did he think about the world? "You can have it," he said. "It's all hurrah for me and the hell with you."

Seattle's first postwar Community Chest drive was only half subscribed. New Hampshire poultry farmers set up a "Macedonian cry" for the grain that was being shipped overseas to the starving. West Coast hoodlums hurled bricks through the window of a Japanese-American's house which had hung out a service star. The South wondered what to do about Negroes who came back from the war wearing sergeant's stripes; citizens of Georgia solved the problem of one Negro G.I. by lynching him (see below).

Work & Play. Yet behind the tawdriness of the most sensational headlines, the U.S. people had worked hard and unsuccessfully for peace and the forging of Mr. Byrnes's weapons. Reconversion was 90% complete by January. The economists had predicted deflation by June, but 56 million had jobs. The U.S. had stoutly supported UNRRA, and it had kept its promise by sending 16,500,000 tons of food to the famine-stricken areas of the world.

In China it had worked for peace. It had introduced democracy to Japan, worked patiently and earnestly on U.N. The U.S. had given the Philippines their full independence. The U.S. had taken a lead in setting up a World Bank. Somewhat grudgingly it had given Britain a $3.750,000,000 loan.

The U.S. was at work, building cars, building houses, building dams, building ships, building aircraft, making pots & pans, radios, vacuum cleaners, nylon stockings, safety pins, baby shoes. Millions of babies were born.

Noisily in celebration, a little more quietly in good works, the U.S. had faced its "awful responsibility." The moral aspects of the Atomic Age were bewildering. Even the nation's spiritual leaders were unprepared. Said the Federal Council of Churches uncertainly: "Christians will stand firm in the faith that God's purpose will ultimately prevail."

Mr. Byrnes, just before flying eastward in the Sacred Cow, said hopefully: "Peace must come from the hearts of men."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.