U.S. At War: Total War Postponed

• Share

(3 of 3)

Cost of Delay. These decisions are not political issues. Realistic men in Washington believe that they are already decided by circumstances—that there will be a sales tax, that there will be national gas rationing, that boys of 18 and 19 will be drafted to fight. A great many of today's patriots who go to celebrate the Fourth in village greens and city parks know the same things in their hearts.

Some are already willing to face the ugly necessities of war. But others cannot yet believe in anything so ugly.

All will cheer when the orator recalls that John Paul Jones, standing on the quarterdeck of the Bonhomme Richard, with all but two of her guns destroyed, with several holes on her water line and fire smoldering near her magazine, shouted at the enemy: "We have not yet begun to fight." Honest orators will have to tell them that the U.S.—with Egypt tottering, Russia fighting in desperation, China already three-quarters gone, and American ships sinking everywhere—is now making a very different kind of answer, saying in effect: "We have not yet begun to fight—we want to wait until after the elections."