Lessons from the heart in a fragile civilization

This column first appeared in the Victoria Daily Times on Nov. 15, 1941.

Much has been written about the emotions that rise in the heart of man, when he comes home after travelling in a foreign country. He sees his own land in a rosy mist, wherein love, hope and pride are blended.

One of America’s newspaper correspondents came into New York harbour on the Clipper a few days ago, and in this mellow mental state felt the throb of his country’s strength. He wrote down a few figures, in his exhilaration.

“Our steel industry,” he wrote, “is twice that of Germany. It is greater than all that of Europe. We use half of the world’s rubber production. We control 62 per cent of all the oil in the world. Germany and her conquered territory control 2 1⁄2 per cent. America is building arms plants which will be the wonder of the world. And still we are afraid. Some of our people have resigned themselves to the fact that Hitler will rule the world. They would have this great nation act like a gibbering giant, hunting for a safe cave.”

When I read these lines, came the news that a great strike was spreading in the United States. If it goes on, defence works will be held up for coal, wheels will stand still, men will be idle.

In this brittle hour when the fate of free men tips drunkenly on a wavering balance, it is no wonder the people of America are afraid. We are afraid, too.

The United States of America has the opportunity of doing a great service for humanity, but the time grows short and the hands of the clock relentlessly move toward the deadline and it might be that the final knockout blow to struggling humanity could come from the idle factories of America. That would be a sore tragedy.

At the end of this article, Raymond Clapper tells of sitting on a rock with his dog beside him. This rock is in his own garden and gives him a sense of security. He thinks of it as an allegory of his country, big, not knowing its own strength.

Around him there is not a sound of civilization, except the black dog padding through the leaves, and suddenly it comes to him that this dog is the work of civilization. The wolf nature has been taken out of him, and now he is a peaceful and useful member of society.

“What people have not been able to do for themselves they have done for dogs,” he concludes.

There we have it. That is what the war is about. The wolf spirit in humanity. In Germany, evolution has been put in reverse. The clock has been turned back. The wolf has returned, by request, by compulsion and by degradation. Kindness, mercy and brotherly love have been expunged from the human heart, and been replaced by greed and cruelty. To see all this in the Nazis and condemn it is easy.

But let us come back home, right back to the place where we live and ask ourselves what have we done, what have we ever done to work the wolf spirit out of humanity? What have we done to create a new spirit, which alone will bring a permanent peace? The prime minister of England, the president of the United States have reaffirmed our faith in Christian ethics and told the world that we are fighting to maintain Christian principles.

We believe this and in that belief our heart is strengthened. But we must not forget that Christian principles have to be fought for at home. We must not shut our eyes to the fact that all is not well even in this fair land of peace and sunshine. We are too apt to cover up our own shortcomings by recounting the braveries of the British people or the five French boys who crossed the channel in a canoe, or grow rapturous of the gallant exploits of the RAF.

I wonder if we really accept all the implications of the Atlantic Charter? Do we agree that it is physically possible to have plenty for all in all countries? And do we know that these things will not come by wishing alone? Are we ready to accept a lower standard of living and an abandonment of our old prejudices to accomplish the end that all men everywhere may enjoy the four freedoms?

If we do accept this, the logical place to begin is here at home. For it is not here yet.

In the recent B.C. election, many words were spilled out on the air and there were arguments, real concrete arguments, which had to do with everyday things, such as apples and onions, stores of which had been destroyed. A poor man who is not able to feed his family adequately is slow to grasp the intricate reasoning concerning surpluses and keeping prices up to subsistence level. And so the election returns brought some surprising results.

I have before me an editorial dealing with this matter of destroyed surpluses. The writer regrets, but defends the destruction. I quote one sentence:

“All the farmers we have ever met have been tending their crops with one thought in mind — the one they hoped to secure. They have had few notions about labouring for some ethereal mission, to feed the public for sweet charity’s sake.”

No one ever said or thought that the farmer should shoulder the whole burden of feeding the hungry. That should be the work of all of us. We should plan for it, not leave it to spurts of generosity.

Farmers are no better or worse that other men and I am glad to think that farmers have a finer vision of their work than the one this editor gives them. Does the doctor think only of his fees? Or the teacher? Or the musician? Are we all out for money, and that alone? And if so, surely we do not deserve to survive, for that is the spirit of the wolf.

At the juncture in my reasoning I gave up and I went out to shell soy beans. One of the joys of living in the country is that there is always some little chore to do, which gives release from the bitter problems of the world. Soy beans have a history. Hou Tsi, one of the gods of agriculture — so say the Chinese — finding himself in an expansive mood one day decided to bestow a great gift on humanity, so he planted a soybean. Now for a hundred generations this little bean has been a valuable food for people who are short of milk or meat.

The first soybean came to this continent in 1804 and was then merely a botanical curiosity, but since science has discovered the soybean, it has certainly gone to town and is now used in making soap, salad oils, varnishes, paint, linoleum, plastics, and can be mixed with wool for cloth — and that is not one-half of its uses. Last year in the United States alone, 11,500,000 acres of soybeans were planted.

Soybeans are something like the Chinese people in their surprising qualities, their patience, their strength and essential goodness. The pods are not easy to open by the thumbnail method, but I like to do it.

They are worth it. The fellowship of plants and flowers is strangely comforting, when the heart is troubled. I like to think of their continuity, their unfailing rebirth, their plan for survival. All that is past points to man’s survival, too. “Oh no man knows Through what wild centuries Roves back the rose!” So it is with us. We stumble and fall, but we do get up and go on, for we are made in God’s image and we know we must love each other or die. The wolf must go.