After the Brawl is Over

Forming a Council to discuss post-war problems at this time when the war looks as if it will have to get more intense before it gets over, is a very bold thing. Such an organization runs the imminent risk of finding itself talking in the air, building a world for which there is no responsibility in fact. It will take astute leadership to keep on the basic issues of the war and away from blue-printing the future world.

What it must do is devote itself to a study of the new problems the war has thrown into relief based on the direct evidence of the last twenty years, avoiding as much as possible hypothetical reasoning about the unpredictable future. The chance that the group has is to understand the forces that will make up the new world, not to map its contours. If it realizes its limits, the Council may give real perspective to the issues we now see under our noses.

This is a very great opportunity to do something constructive about the war. Only through such non-partisan and tolerant thought as this embryonic Council proposes can we hope to carry on what is best in our "way of life."