Newspaper Page Text
Campus Mirror
Published During the College Year by the Students of Spelman College, Atlanta, Georgia
\()L. XIX JANUARY, 1943 NO. 4
luppy y ear
"New Year, The Beginning’’
Helen Rice, '43
Each year, as long as we can remember,
there have been pictures of an old man and
a smiling young baby which represent the
passing of the old year and the advent of
the New Year. The description is a pictur
esque one. The old man’s shoulders are
bent, his head bowed, scythe in hand; he
marches slowly away into a vast unknown.
Then there is the contrast—a vigorous charm
ing baby, ready for adventure, proud to be
alive and glad to be a symbol of the present.
Many of the years which have been so anxi
ously heralded, have not merited any special
attention, but others have filled the annals
of history with daring episodes of human
experience.
In this first month of the year, 1943, it is
fitting to take a backward look, to face the
present squarely, and to remain ever mindful
of the future. For those who think clearly,
this may serve as a means of retaining equi
librium amid a whirlwind of disaster and
tragedy.
I here are years of the past which hold
unrivaled significance for each of us. They
arc the years 1492. 1620, and 1863. They
mark the birth of a nation and the liberation
of the Negroes in \merica. The willingness
to adventure and find out more about the
world brought Columbus to \merican soil.
The desire for freedom and new life urged
the fir-l settlers to become the fathers of a
great nation; and the signing of the Emanci
pation Proclamation h\ the noble Miraham
Lincoln was the culmination of the prayers
and honest toil of a suppressed people and
the triumph of right in brothers. V swift
glance backward should charge us with the
urge to adventure, to pioneer, and to possess
complete freedom to live nobly.
I lie present requires courageous men and
women to face it. Intense hatreds, war. and
suffering have become the main topics around
the world. We are witnessing a struggle be
tween geo-politics and the new democracy.
Even though we are a part of the democracy,
it is possible to assume various attitudes
which emanate from our experiences within
it. But the year 1943 must not find us weak,
cringing, vacillating beings, but true Ameri
cans, too, ready to sacrifice, to fight, and to
live dangerously. The striking optimism that
has been ours must not turn to shallow sar
casm. Our genuine fellowship must not be
come a show of hypocrisy. Our racial group
must fight every trace of prejudice that may
arise within it. We must look much farther
than the realms of our immediate needs
toward the great principles for which the
allied nations are fighting.
The future must be thought of from many
different angles. It cannot be a selfish ap
proach, for this is indeed a world struggle.
When we think of a postwar world in the
broadest sense, the words of Vice-President
Henry A. Wallace are very timely.
“When the determined fight of our United
Nations has won the peace of victory, no one
power will lie able to control this heart land
of the future. Perhaps there will be a 'Joint
International Highway and \irway Vuthority’
assuring access to all the nations which are
eager to eliminate fear from the world and
observe the principles of true democracy in
their dealings. While this international high
way-airway extending along the \mericas and
across \sia is being constructed, many efforts
will be started to increase the agricultural
effic iency and to improve the education of
the billion and more who are now so poverty
stricken. \- the standards of living of free
peoples i- lifted, the peace of the world can
be made secure.”
The vice-president voices in modern terms
the thoughts <>f the prophet \mos. who -aid.
” \nd they shall -it every man under hi- own
(Continued on Page 6)
A Resolution for the
New Year
“Resolved; To live with all my might
while I do live.”
Such a resolution is worthy of the keeping,
for it calls for the best that every one of us
has to give. Phillips Brooks once wrote "Do
not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger
men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your
powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks.
Then the doing of your work shall be no
miracle, but you shall be a miracle.”
That is wdiat w f e need to do in the year
1943 —to rise to the demands that will be
made upon us — not to translate those de
mands into what we want to do. Most of
us can do much more than we are doing
most of us can give much more than we are
giving in our homes, our unions, our com
munities, our nation. We must live with all
our might today when the fight for right is
at our doorsteps.
Overseas the hopeless people of the con
quered and subjugated nations are forced
into acts utterly foreign to their own religious
and national ideals, while in the totalitarian
countries, the souls as well as the bodies of
men are regimented. They hate and worship
at the nod of a powerful dictator. But here
we are still free to think. We are free to
im ike our own decisions and we are free to
do right. We can make a resolve and we
can keep it.
Let us make a new resolution thi- New
'tear. Let us make this world a better place
just because we are in it. Let us work to
the best of our ability and then do more. This
is our world . . . and it w ill be just what we
you and I and our neighbors make of it.
Let u- LINE with all our might, carefully
distinguishing the false i-sues from the real,
while we strive with every effort to do and
preserve what we know to be the right.