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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.