The Home Front
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
THE HOME FRONT By William E. Bohn A Happy Century to You A few weeks ago I had the honor of standing as godfather to a hardy youngster who will carry my name into the enigmatic future....
...Dear William: At the time I stood in the church and promised to serve as your godfather, I was 85 years old...
...The Revolution spawned two enormously powerful enemies whom, as I write, we can neither understand nor reason with...
...In response to twinges of conscience, then, I have composed the letter which follows...
...I take comfort only in the thought that mankind is still human, and that in the long run we will probably return to an era somewhat like the one I started out in...
...In fact, I am willing to bet that as you read this letter, 100 years from now, things will be going along in fine style...
...The prairies were still wide open, and paradisical California was far from being the most populous state in the Union...
...True, socially and politically the world was far from perfect...
...But since the 18th century, liberty and general prosperity had been steadily increasing, and everyone born into our world was convinced that improvements of every sort would naturally continue...
...And when I look into his trusting blue eyes I feel like apologizing for the snide trick that we have played on him...
...Nobody worried about jobs then...
...We have lived in a wonderful age, and now we are passing on a legacy composed mostly of worry, trouble and danger...
...All I can say to you, William, is that my generation is leaving yours a dangerous and slippery sphere...
...These events turned our world from the hopeful place of my youth to the cosmos of shadows which today sets some people to thinking about digging underground shelters...
...The age I grew up in was one in which good fortune was reasonably taken for granted...
...With longevity increasing as it is, it is probable that he will still be alive somewhere around 2063...
...It is to be handed to William, my greatnephew, on his 100th birthday...
...But it will at least show that we denizens of the 20th century were not altogether proud of our performance...
...Large sections of the population did not even enjoy the vote...
...The atom bomb, and later, more refined versions of it, exposed us to the threat of extinction within minutes...
...Good luck...
...The difference does not lie exclusively in their overweening sense of superiority...
...Consider all the good things which have been accomplished: the automobile, the airplane, the peaceful uses of power derived from the atom...
...and the second brought the atom bomb...
...But the Communist leaders of Russia and China not only feel their kind of government is superior to any other...
...My memory runs back to the 1880s...
...There were some pretty backward kingdoms and empires...
...Men in the 18th century, with all their brutal physical discomforts, led a more satisfactory inner life than we do...
...And this change was tied up with our two great world wars...
...A good deal of poverty was taken for granted...
...The Russians and Chinese have had a good deal to do with upsetting our world...
...most of his life, in fact, will be lived in the 21st century...
...they consider it their duty to impose it on all other nations...
...There have been many nations, including America, which have thought themselves better than anyone else...
...Whether it will make any sense at that time no one can tell for sure...
...What troubles me, though, is that I began my life in a magnificently happy era and you began yours in one of horrible complexities...
...Yet here we sit worrying our lives away...
...Uncle Bill...
...With the first war came the Russian Revolution...
...These two nations, under their present regimes, are different than any which have ever existed...
...Together our lives stretch over a period of almost 200 years...
...These miserable times can't last forever...
...There was no technological unemployment —and very little of any other kind...
...This has made our world, with all its scientific and social know-how, an uneasy place in which to live...
...In any event, here is the letter...
...Now you yourself have lived a full century...
...In a thousand ways life has been made more comfortable and convenient...
...Since those days a change has come over the spirit of our dream...
Vol. 46 • January 1963 • No. 2
