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Where there is no vision, the people perish % Proverbs XXIX, 18 “What more do you ask?” cry the captains and the kings, the presidents and the prime ministers. “Have we not promised • you Victory?” “It is not enough,” say the people. “We had Victory before. It turned to ashes. It brought us to this hour, when once more our sons are about to die.” “Then what do you want?” ask the leaders.. • - - * ■ ■ : c. Sf'i. plea for straight hard thinking ,i. •> on the eve of great events W* are fold that thousands of young Americans will die in the invasion of Europe before the harvests are gathered this summer. What will they have died for? To stop Hitler?... to beat back a berserk Germany from dominating our world? If so, they will not have died in vain. But is it vain to hope for more?—to hope that Hitler’s de feat will be War’s defeat—to hope that the coming victory will usher in a constructive, durable peace in Europe? Whether this tragic war is followed by long years of peace, or only by an uneasy truce ending too soon in an other war, will be decided in part by how much hard think ing we do right here at home—beginning right now. What will give us a durable peace in Europe ? Shall we rely on the vague and dated promises of the At lantic Charter? They have already been tossed aside in ac tion by Russia—and by Britain and America, too, for that matter. Shall we depend on our present policy of “expediency”? It supports discredited kings and a status quo which many Europeans often hate almost as much as they do the Nazis themselves. It will take a lot more than these to bring a permanent peace for Europe. It will require continuous common de pkinns among the nations concerned—decisions in which the people as well as the presidents and premiers must take part. We Americans have already indicated, through Con gressional resolutions, that we believe we are one of the nations concerned in Europe’s and the world’s future. And on several occasions Secretary of State Cordell Hull has publicly reaffirmed the general principles that govern America’s relations with Europe and the rest of the world. But the swift march of day-to-day events shows that general principles are not enough. We (meaning you) have got to make some specific decisions pretty soon. Right decisions will help to win the war. Wrong de cisions will certainly lose the peace. The important ques tions have no easy answers. For example: When Old Glory flies over the Rhine—what then? One decision we must face is what to do with a beaten Germany. ► Do you want Germany divided into dozens of little states, as she was before Bismarck’s time? ► Do you want to see pieces of Germany given to her neighbors as was done to ancient Poland? ► If so, do you want the Germans “evacuated” from East Prussia to make room for Russian and Polish colonists? ► If Germans are allowed to stay where they are, do you want them treated like a conquered people or like equal citizens? ► Do you w'ant Germans to rebuild the cities German armies have destroyed? If none of these make sense to you, then what should be done with Germany? Perhaps we must first find a solution for the problems of Europe as a whole. Problems like these: ► Are Europe’s 18 nations to stay economically isolated from each other as they were between the last war and this one? ► Are their jigsaw borders and clashing interests to keep them in a state of more or less continuous war-de clared or undeclared? ► And what about the social revolution and the class war by which all Europe was torn, all through the thirties? In which direction should America throw the weight of her influence—or can we afford not to exert our influ ence at all? And finally—how great a part are you willing that American leaders, American boys, and American dollars should play in building a new democratic Europe that can live in peace? • • • What are you doing to get these questions answered? What are you doing to prepare yourself to be part of an informed public opinion? Are you thinking hard and straight? Are you reading, talking, guiding the conversation around you into channels that lead into the reservoir of national thinking on these difficult, terribly important subjects? Are you using your mindpower to prepare for an American crisis as great as those of 1919, 1865, 1787? TIME believes America's greatest need, now and in the coming years, is for the sovereign people to make up their minds and ; speak them out. * To do so, citizens must keep themselves informed. And that means * not only reading newspapers and * TIME, but also reading books and periodicals that argue the cases and advance the causes that are in the news. So, in advertisements like this, TIME is seeking to encourage such wide reading and thinking, by posing certain questions of the day whose week-to-week develop ments are reported in TIME’S columns. For TIME’S own future is unalterably linked to a U.S. citizenry deeply concerned about public affairs—to a na tion fiercely insistent upon seeking the truth and learning from recorded experience. vr A r* o • x v; • i M • v«? <n r-* 4 TIME The Weekly Newsmagazine-9 Rockefeller Plaza, Newllork 20 - I * | » - I ■» » *