Editorial: July 4, 1945
This is the fourth successive July 4 when the guns of patriots have spoken more eloquently than the patriotic orators.
Time was when the Fourth of July signaled hampers of lunch and unhampered rhetoric. A fellow joined his neighbors at the picnic grove to stow away incredible amounts of fried chicken, hard-boiled eggs, sandwiches, pickles, cake, pie and lemonade and then digest them drowsily under the soporific periods of the day’s speaker.
Peace was the essence of this martially-born festival, and we thought of war only when the reverberating orator declaimed on “those brave lads who.” Lazily, if at all, we meditated on those brave lads as if they were creatures of romantic fiction.
Now, for the fourth Independence Day in a row, we snap to reality. We are stabbingly aware that brave lads are fighting and dying. We sense the roar of distant battles and our hearts cry out in yearning for our men and women who are in peril.
If we dare look toward the future on this day, we need no eloquence to express our highest wish. Above all else, we hope that, long before another Fourth of July, victorious peace will have returned.