of Governor Herbert R. O'Conor 577

MOUNT SAINT MARY'S COLLEGE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
MARYLAND CHAPTER

Hotel Stafford, December 29, 1941
Baltimore

HOW many of us, as we attended our history lectures in college, or burned
the midnight oil cramming for history examinations, ever figured that we
would actually see history in the making, even see the world remade almost in
its entirety?

How many people throughout our Country today, I wonder, ever pause to
realize that they are at this moment seeing momentous happenings such as
possibly the world before has never known. The newspapers are the history
books, the radio is the classroom, the whole wide world is a vast stage upon
which the various phases of this world reconstruction is being presented.

It is necessary to go beyond the front pages of the newspapers, however, to
get a complete picture of what is happening both within and without our
Country, if Ave are to keep track accurately of developments, significant in
themselves, but more so because of their indication of coming trends and ac-
tivities. For instance, over the weekend, dispatches from New York report
that the hotels and "night spots" are completely sold out for the New Year's
celebrations. In the same paper, we read that the chiefs of the Office of Pro-
duction Management, Mr. Knudson and Mr. Hillman, urged that defense plants
throughout the Country keep going on New Year's Day to speed collapse of the
Axis by millions of man-hours. And in the same* editions, we read that the
"closed shop" is still an issue, and that the possibility of work stoppage looms,
despite industry-labor points of agreements.

Further, as men trained for leadership in religious and world affairs, you
must have been impressed with the preparations being made throughout our
Country and in England for national days of prayer on Thursday, New Year's
Day, and the Vatican City report that Pope Pius XII will be the keystone of an
international day of prayer for peace, on Ascension Thursday, May 14th.

While none of these news dispatches overshadow the military news for
front page prominence, they may be considered as approaching in significance,
the fact that the Japs were landing reinforcements on Luzon Island, or that the
German rout in Russia was continuing unabated.

Take the first news items mentioned, for instance, and couple the fact of
the New Year's Eve sellouts with the plea for industrial activity on New
Year's day. How much more soul-satisfying it would have been if the reports
had been reversed—if industry had announced that a complete accord had been
reached for 100% production on New Year's Day, and if the gaiety end of the
holiday had been affected by the stern realization that this Country was at war
and battling for its very existence. Then, indeed, we would have real cause
for hope and confidence.