THE NATION: The Bomb & the Man

(5 of 5)

He believed that in the Democratic Society there is great room for experiment, for the method of trial and error, for the free play of economic and social innovation, including risk and error.

He believed that there is no practical problem of human need or welfare which could not be solved in a liberal Democratic Society. He knew that these problems were never finally solved, but he did not admit that his society presented any permanent bar to their solution.

Evanescent Chance. Pondering the great events of 1945, the democrat could justly feel that once again he had been given another chance. One generation of tyrants had been overcome; there were many places on earth where a man could walk proudly, no matter his race or religion, his economic or political beliefs.

For the moment, at least, he could once again attach some importance to matters irrelevant to war, less dynamic than politics. He could turn some attention again to poetry and art. He could applaud Actress-of-the-Year Ingrid Bergman, wrinkle his pseudo-Philistine brow over the re-emergence of Artist-of-the-Year Pablo Picasso, still full of invention and razzle-dazzle, still able to rouse resentment. He could view the discovery of streptomycin by Doctor-of-the-Year Selman Wakeman as something more than irony.

Conscious of the fact that he and his world had finally found the formula for complete destruction, he also knew that he had been given added time to struggle against it. That, perhaps by the same kind of accident which made Harry Truman the Man of 1945, was the hope of 1946.