The Southland Times THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 1945. The Atomic Bomb

Southland Times, Issue 25746, 9 August 1945, Page 4

The Southland Times THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 1945. The Atomic Bomb

NO greater challenge has ever been presented to humanity than the atomic bomb. The conscience of man can be stirred both by the stars and by the pit; by the purity of an ultimate ideal and by the demonic menace of dark powers. But good and evil are not inventions or machines. These things are neutral. Good and evil are impulses which arise in the human mind and heart which determine the use to which inventions can be put. The atomic bomb, difficult to discuss without the appearance of exaggerations, involves the use of secrets surrounding radioactivity in a weapon of such explosive power, that it becomes not only a crisis to the Japanese, but a threat to the whole human race. Yet this latent energy can be harnessed to the priceless service of providing light, heat and power for mankind. The world already knows how radium, which throws off deadly radioactive energy, has been used for humane purposes. The discovery of new forms of basic energy is a scientific triumph, but the use to which that knowledge is put is a moral responsibility resting on everyman. Little wonder The New York Times says “that not the slightest spirit of braggadocio was discernable either in the official announcement or the mien of the officials who gave out the news. There was a sobering awareness of the tremendous responsibility involved in the use of this devastating weapon.” For years front-rank physicists have been on the brink of this discovery. Jeans, writing ten years ago, described how a piece of coal about the size of a pea possessed sufficient radioactive energy to drive the Mauretania twice across the Atlantic. It is a deep tragedy that war should have inevitably turned these advances in knowledge into an obliterating, destructive weapon exceeding the powers of imagination. The scientists who made the most vital contributions include refugee aliens, who carried their skill and ability out of Nazi territory and placed it at the disposal of the Allies. It is indeed fortunate that Great Britain was far-seeing and sufficiently tolerant to receive them. The ablest physicists of Great Britain and the United States pooled their technical skill and material resources to perfect the weapon. Once again Great Britain has pioneered an immense discovery overshadowing even radar and penicillin. Harnessed to the form of an atomic bomb, this energy annihilates all previous conceptions of war and peace. The extensive use of such weapons would swiftly devastate an entire country while using only a handful of “frontline” technicians. Whoever controls this weapon could rule the world if gangster principles prevailed. One envisages as the only defence the turning of man back to the earth to eke out a troglodyte existence in sunless, soul-destroying cities dug deeply under the earth’s surface. Unless the Japanese Government surrenders promptly the country will meet a terrible, almost unthinkable, retribution for her treachery at Pearl Harbour. Few people will feel comfortable if such a grim and massive tragedy occurs, even though the essential guilt and responsibility for surrender lie on Japan.

Changing Men’s Hearts

Beyond this immediate issue lies a deeper problem. It cannot be long before the details of atomic energy are known to the world. What happens if such a terrific source of new power is organized by international gangsters? We know now that there can be only one more world war—the last —and beyond that lies a clear vision of the disintegrated chaos of yet another civilization whose character could not master its triumphs. There would be left only a twilight of existence with the scattered remnants of isolated nations groping dimly through the shadows of a dying world. The dark ages produced nothing like this. There was an eclipse of culture and faith, but this development threatens an eclipse- of life itself unless a higher morality prevails. This is a moral challenge of the first magnitude. Atomic energy can be used to usher in a new epoch of civilization. It will become a giant for good or evil according to the moral standards of mankind. Knowledge cannot be indefinitely restricted. We are therefore in a tragic dilemma. Either we must conceal the secret or we must risk it some day being turned against us. There is only one solution. The New York Times said: “Civilization and humanity can now survive only if there is a revolution in man’s political thinking. Can man grow up quickly enough to win the race between civilization and disaster?” It is, of course, deeper than a political problem: it is essentially a moral problem. Morality must be revitalized or the race will perish. The Christian code, never surpassed or superseded, remains the one true hope the world possesses. Only its strong sense of the sanctity of the personality, of the ultimate and essential brotherhood of man, of the principle of unselfishness, offers a way of escape. A Christian ethic cannot exist in a vacuum. It must have the dynamic of faith behind it or it quickly fades and perishes. Isolated idealists certainly exist, but the ordinary man and woman cannot maintain faith as a reality without the fellowship and inspiration of others, and without the leaders trained to think and inspire the people. A new challenge comes therefore to all peoples to rebuild the moral faith of the age, to depend not on formulas, but on a living spirit in the hearts of men. A new challenge goes likewise to the Churches to use their growing unity to grasp anew the dynamic which in either ages gave strength for reconstruction. Morality has become not a desirability, but a necessity for survival. We could no more afford to permit a gangster nation to use atomic energy than we could let a drunk man play with the controls in a great power station. We cannot afford even one mistake. Just as the imperishability of the human spirit and dignity are being affirmed anew, life has suddenly become frail and insignificant beside the unleashed power of nature wrongly used. Until the human race can break .down artificial frontiers by the Christian

spirit of toleration and brotherhood, until men can in every part of the world elevate the ideal of service above self, until humanity will acknowledge the personality as a sacred citadel of the spirit, all will be in jeopardy, and peace gravely endangered. Fear may make war impossible, but who desires to exist under the constant threat of an unseen horror? Men’s hearts must be changed, a deeper faith must arise and a revitalized moral code must make wax - unthinkable and impossible.