We must stand together in times of crisis
This column first appeared in the Victoria Daily Times on Dec. 27, 1941.
This will be a new year for Canada. It began when the first news came crashing in on Dec. 7 that Japan was dropping bombs on Honolulu.
I was looking at a Currier and Ives print on the wall when the news came. A Christmas scene with a snowy-roofed farmhouse, where a bright red sleighful of visitors had just arrived at the door and was being received with joyful welcome by grandfather and grandmother. It was called
Home for Christmas, and there was something about its security and peace and plenty that made me homesick for something that has gone with the sleighbells.
We had been discussing the inconveniences of this era, with coal oil lamps and water from the well. Someone had just said it took a lot of sleighbells to atone for the discomfort of early rising and fire-lighting in a cold kitchen, and the carrying out of ashes.
“Brick and mortar for me,” he said, “and the easy ways of electricity and airplanes!” Then came the news. Surely that day, Dec. 7, will have a place in the history of the world, and an honourable place, too. By one stroke the warring elements were welded together. Hitler’s psychology is wrong again. That man never learns anything! Now he has united fourfifths of the world against him, and the other fifth is beginning to doubt him.
We know this coming year will decide the fate of the world. But there is something in the struggle now of clear-cut hope, and I almost wrote certainty.
No New Year’s Day should dawn without a few good, honest resolutions, and I have been turning over some in my mind. There is always the one that William Blake put into shining words:
“I shall not rest from earthy strife,
Nor shall the sword rust in my hand, Till we have built Jerusalem In England’s green and pleasant land.”
The building of Jerusalem is a major operation, but it is made up of many little jobs that we all can do, even if they never show, are never reported, never even noticed. There is an old carpenter in a prairie town who always sends $5 to the post office in the nearest city to pay deficient postage at Christmas so that parcels may not be delayed. The Boy Scouts who sweep snowy streets and serve as convoys for elderly people crossing streets, the kindly neighbour who leaves her own work to help someone — these are the unseen builders.
It is unnecessary to spur on the efforts of many of our people. They already are working overtime. But there is a dead area still, untouched by war or rumour of war. People who believe that lending their money on the best security, at higher bank rates, is a patriotic gesture that exonerates them from further effort. I believe they can be touched now. Surely they heard the warning crack of doom when the Repulse and Prince of Wales sank mortally wounded beneath the waves — surely they knew the meaning of this major tragedy.
We are on the spot. We fight a powerful and merciless foe. Let all the observers and sidelines come in now, as they value their lives. Let there be no grumbling, no time-wasting. I heard of a family who quarrelled with the air warden when he told them to “douse their lights.” Mrs. --- said she objected to his language. She said she had always done her duty as a citizen, but she would not endure bullying from anyone.
Avoid time-wasting. The first night I listened to the radio until three in the morning and the next day felt depressed and could do nothing. Just one good day wasted. So this resolution covers excessive radio listening as well as all idle talk and chatter and “disputing to no profit.” We have work to do. Every one of us. Comforts to be made, knitting, sewing, letters to write and each of us has only a certain amount of energy. I have a friend who is remarkable for her accomplishments. She is never in a hurry. Never sorry for herself. Never angry. Talks well, but never too much. I know now how she does it. She budgets her time. We will all have to do this.
Let us get together more. Cultivate reading aloud and singing. There’s nothing so heartsome as group singing. I think of the Welsh miners and their cold, hard work, crawling through the mineways in the noisome dark. Yet they sing. How Green Was My Valley tells in unforgettable words the power of song, and so does a book by Howard Spring called Fame Is the Spur. I can think of how books like these read aloud in the black nights will put fibre into our souls. We have wasted too much time on worthless things.
It is good for us to think of the valiant ones of today, the Chinese, the Russians, who blew up their great dam. Let us be loyal to those who are responsible for our war effort. I know we have always rejoiced in our liberties of free speech and lots of it! We have abused our public men, gaily and thoroughly. We have seen evil in quiet, harmless things and made political capital out of trifles and, in a brighter, happier day we may return to these pleasant pastimes.
But today we must refrain. These people who lead us must have instant and whole-hearted loyalty no matter what we think of their methods. I am proud of Canada’s war effort. There are places which must be strengthened, to be sure, but all this will come.
The gloom-spreaders must hush their wailing now. Don’t listen to them. Shun them if you cannot cheer them. I heard one, when I was on the boat coming back from Vancouver. He was busy recounting all the shortcoming of the British Empire. But down below, in the lounge, coming up the stairs ran the words “The King is still in London” and that seemed to answer most of his charges.
My last resolution is this: I will do all I can to build the walls of Jerusalem. I’ll do more than I ever did. I’ll work harder. We have three great pillars of Empire. The home, the church, the school, and they can all take some building. I keep thinking of Kipling’s Recessional. There is a pickup in every line:
“Lord God of Host, be with us yet Lest we forget.” We do believe that there is a Power, beyond and above us, who has not forgotten the world He made. I asked a little girl if she had been frightened when the blackout came so suddenly and there was the alarm of an attack. She said she was, just at first, but she watched her mother, and her mother was not a bit frightened, and so, she said: “I won’t ever be frightened, as long as mama keeps smiling.”
That is the faith of a child. Let us guard it, with all we have. There are lonely hearts to cherish; discouraged preachers to enhearten; timid little ones to be pleased, and comforted. Faltering faith to be rekindled.
Yes, it’s a new year! A year of glorious opportunity. Are we sufficient for these things? With God’s help, we are! Some of McClung’s columns from the 1930s and 1940s have been collected in a book, The Valiant Nellie McClung: Selected Writings by Canada’s Most Famous Suffragist, by Barbara Smith.