Essays of E. B. White

by E. B. White

  The thing I watch for in the speeches of the candidates is some hint that the thermonuclear arms race may be bringing people nearer together, rather than forcing them farther apart. I suspect that because of fallout we may achieve a sort of universality sooner than we bargained for. Fallout may compel us to fall in. The magic-carpet ride on the mushroom cloud has left us dazed—we have come so far so fast. There is a passage in Anne Lindbergh’s book North to the Orient that captures the curious lag between the mind and the body during a plane journey, between the slow unfolding of remembered images and the swift blur of modern flight. Mrs. Lindbergh started her flight to the Orient by way of North Haven, her childhood summer home. “The trip to Maine,” she wrote, “used to be a long and slow one. There was plenty of time in the night, spattered away in the sleeper, in the morning spent ferrying across the river at Bath, in the afternoon syncopated into a series of calls on one coast town after another—there was plenty of time to make the mental change coinciding with our physical change. . . . But on this swift flight to North Haven in the Sirius my mind was so far behind my body that when we flew over Rockland Harbor the familiar landmarks below me had no reality.”

  Like the girl in the plane, we have arrived, but the familiar scene lacks reality. We cling to old remembered forms, old definitions, old comfortable conceptions of national coziness, national self-sufficiency. The Security Council meets solemnly and takes up Suez, eleven sovereign fellows kicking a sovereign ditch around while England threatens war to defend her “lifelines,” when modern war itself means universal contamination, universal deathlines, and the end of ditches. I would feel more helpful, more secure, if the councilmen suddenly changed their tune and began arguing the case for mud turtles and other ancient denizens of ponds and ditches. That is the thing at stake now, and it is what will finally open the canal to the world’s ships in perfect concord.

  Candidates for political office steer clear of what Mrs. Luce used to call “globaloney,” for fear they may lose the entire American Legion vote and pick up only Norman Cousins. Yet there are indications that supranational ideas are alive in the back of a few men’s minds. Through the tangle of verbiage, the idea of “common cause” skitters like a shy bird. Mr. Dulles uses the word “interdependent” in one sentence, then returns promptly to the more customary, safer word “independent.” We give aid to Yugoslavia to assure her “independence,” and the very fact of the gift is proof that neither donor nor recipient enjoys absolute independence anymore; the two are locked in moral interdependence. Mr. Tito says he is for “new forms and new laws.” I haven’t the vaguest notion of what he means by that, and I doubt whether he has, either. Certainly there are no old laws, if by “laws” he means enforceable rules of conduct by which the world community is governed. But I’m for new forms, all right. Governor Stevenson, in one of his talks, said, “Nations have become so accustomed to living in the dark that they find it hard to learn to live in the light.” What fight? The light of government? If so, why not say so? President Eisenhower ended a speech the other day with the phrase “a peace of justice in a world of law.” Everything else in his speech dealt with a peace of justice in a world of anarchy.

  The riddle of disarmament, the riddle of peace, seems to me to hang on the interpretation of these conflicting and contradictory phrases—and on whether or not the men who use them really mean business. Are we independent or interdependent? We can’t possibly be both. Do we indeed seek a peace of justice in a world of law, as the President intimates? If so, when do we start, and how? Are we for “new forms,” or will the old ones do? In 1945, after the worst blood bath in history, the nations settled immediately back into old forms. In its structure, the United Nations reaffirms everything that caused the Second World War. At the end of a war fought to defeat dictators, the U.N. welcomed Stalin and Perón to full membership, and the Iron Curtain quickly descended to put the seal of authority on this inconsistent act. The drafters of the Charter assembled in San Francisco and defended their mild, inadequate format with the catchy phrase “Diplomacy is the art of the possible.” Meanwhile, a little band of physicists met in a squash court and said, “The hell with the art of the possible. Watch this!”

  The world organization debates disarmament in one room and, in the next room, moves the knights and pawns that make national arms imperative. This is not justice and law, and this is not light. It is not new forms. The U.N. is modern in intent, old-fashioned in shape. In San Francisco in 1945, the victor nations failed to create a constitution that placed a higher value on principle than on sovereignty, on common cause than on special cause. The world of 1945 was still 100 percent parochial. The world of 1956 is still almost 100 percent parochial. But at last we have a problem that is clearly a community problem, devoid of nationality—the problem of the total pollution of the planet.

  We have, in fact, a situation in which the deadliest of all weapons, the H-bomb, together with its little brother, the A-bomb, is the latent source of great agreement among peoples. The bomb is universally hated, and it is universally feared. We cannot escape it with collective security; we shall have to face it with united action. It has given us a few years of grace without war, and now it offers us a few millenniums of oblivion. In a paradox of unbelievable jocundity, the shield of national sovereignty suddenly becomes the challenge of national sovereignty. And, largely because of events beyond our control, we are able to sniff the faint stirring of a community ferment—something every man can enjoy.

  The President speaks often of “the peaceful uses of atomic energy,” and they are greatly on his mind. I believe the peaceful use of atomic energy that should take precedence over all other uses is this: stop it from contaminating the soil and the sea, the rain and the sky, and the bones of man. This is elementary. It comes ahead of “good-will” ships and it comes ahead of cheap power. What good is cheap power if your child already has an incurable cancer?

  The hydrogen-garbage-disposal program unites the people of the earth in a common antilitterbug drive for salvation. Radioactive dust has no nationality, is not deflected by boundaries; it falls on Turk and Texan impartially. The radio-strontium isotope finds its way into the milk of Soviet cow and English cow with equal ease. This simple fact profoundly alters the political scene and calls for political leaders to echo the physicists and say, “Never mind the art of the possible. Watch this!”

  To me, living in the light means an honest attempt to discover the germ of common cause in a world of special cause, even against the almost insuperable odds of parochialism and national fervor, even in the face of the dangers that always attend political growth. Actually, nations are already enjoying little pockets of unity. The European coal-steel authority is apparently a success. The U.N., which is usually impotent in political disputes, has nevertheless managed to elevate the world’s children and the world’s health to a community level. The trick is to encourage and hasten this magical growth, this benign condition—encourage it and get it on paper, while children still have healthy bones and before we have all reached the point of no return. It will not mean the end of nations; it will mean the true beginning of nations.

  Paul-Henri Spaak, addressing himself to the Egyptian government the other day, said, “We are no longer at the time of the absolute sovereignty of states.” We are not, and we ought by this time to know we are not. I just hope we learn it in time. In the beautiful phrase of Mrs. Lindbergh’s, there used to be “plenty of time in the night.” Now there is hardly any time at all.

  Well, this started out as a letter and has turned into a discourse. But I don’t mind. If a candidate were to appear on the scene and come out for the dignity of mud turtles, I suppose people would hesitate to support him, for fear he had lost his reason. But he would have my vote, on the theory that in losing his reason he had kept his head. It is time men allowed their imagination to infect their intellect, time we all rushed headlong into the wilder regions of thought where the earth again revolves around the sun instead
of around the Suez, regions where no individual and no group can blithely assume the right to sow the sky with seeds of mischief, and where the sovereign nation at last begins to function as the true friend and guardian of sovereign man.

  P.S. (May 1962). The dirty state of affairs on earth is getting worse, not better. Our soil, our rivers, our seas, our air carry an ever-increasing load of industrial wastes, agricultural poisons, and military debris. The seeds of mischief are in the wind—in the warm sweet airs of spring. Contamination continues in greater force and new ways, and with new excuses: the Soviet tests last autumn had a double-barreled purpose—to experiment and to intimidate. This was the first appearance of the diplomacy of dust; the breaking of the moratorium by Russia was a high crime, murder in the first degree. President Kennedy countered with the announcement that he would reply in kind unless a test-ban agreement could be reached by the end of April. None was reached, and our tests are being conducted. One more nation, France, has joined the company of testers. If Red China learns the trick, we will probably see the greatest pyrotechnic display yet, for the Chinese love fireworks of all kinds.

  I asked myself what I would have done, had I been in the President’s shoes, and was forced to admit I would have taken the same course—test. The shattering of the moratorium was for the time being the shattering of our hopes of good nuclear conduct. In a darkening and dirt-ridden world the course of freedom must be maintained even by desperate means, while there is a time of grace, and the only thing worse than being in an arms race is to be in one and not compete. The President’s decision to resume testing in the atmosphere was, I believe, a correct decision, and I think the people who protest by lying down in the street have not come up with an alternative course that is sensible and workable. But the time of grace will run out, sooner or later, for all nations. We are in a vast riddle, all of us—dependence on a strength that is inimical to life—and what we are really doing is fighting a war that uses the lives of future individuals, rather than the lives of existing young men. The President did his best to lighten the blow by pointing out that fallout isn’t as bad as it used to be, that our tests would raise the background radiation by only one percent. But this is like saying that it isn’t dangerous to go in the cage with the tiger because the tiger is taking a nap. I am not calmed by the news of fallout’s mildness, or deceived by drowsy tigers. The percentages will increase, the damage will mount steadily unless a turn is made somehow. Because our adversary tests, we test; because we test, they test. Where is the end of this dirty habit? I think there is no military solution, no economic solution, only a political solution, and this is the area to which we should give the closest attention and in which we should show the greatest imaginative powers.

  These nuclear springtimes have a pervasive sadness about them, the virgin earth having been the victim of rape attacks. This is a smiling morning; I am writing where I can look out at our garden piece, which has been newly harrowed, ready for planting. The rich brown patch of ground used to bring delight to eye and mind at this fresh season of promise. For me the scene has been spoiled by the maggots that work in the mind. Tomorrow we will have rain, and the rain falling on the garden will carry its cargo of debris from old explosions in distant places. Whether the amount of this freight is great or small, whether it is measurable by the farmer or can only be guessed at, one thing is certain: the character of rain has changed, the joy of watching it soak the waiting earth has been diminished, and the whole meaning and worth of gardens has been brought into question.

  Unity

  AVENUE OF THE AMERICAS, JUNE 4, 1960

  In 1899, the year I was born, a peace conference was held at The Hague. I don’t remember how it came out, but there have been two memorable wars since then, and I am now sixty, and peace parleys, some of them tackling the subject of disarmament, have been held at intervals all my life. At this writing, five nations of the East and five of the West are studying disarmament, hopeful of achieving peace. When last heard from, they were deadlocked, which is the natural condition of nations engaged in arms negotiations. The Soviet Union has suggested that they “start all over again.”

  The West has a real genius for doing approximately what the East wants it to do. We go to Paris and sit in stunned surprise while Khrushchev bangs a cat against a wall. We go to Geneva and listen solemnly while Russia presents herself as the author of total disarmament and peace. We hasten to the Security Council room at the United Nations and earnestly defend ourselves against a charge that we have “aggressed.” We join England for Princess Margaret’s wedding, and next day we separate from England again, to return our trust to last-minute diplomatic conformity. We use the word “peace” the way the East likes to see it used—in the last paragraph of the President’s formal speeches, and preceded by the adjectives “just” and “lasting,” as though peace were some sort of precious stone that, once discovered, would put an end to trouble for all time. After the recent events in Paris, and the bruises of the night, it is not at all certain that the West should indulge itself longer in the pleasures of perfect political disunity.

  Soviet arms, terrible as they are, seem less fearsome to me than the Soviet’s dedication to its political faith, which includes the clear goal of political unity. Russia openly proclaims her intention of communizing the world and announces that she is on the march. Not all her cronies present the face of unity—Mao’s China, Tito’s Yugoslavia, Gomulka’s Poland—but at least the idea of unity is implicit in the religion of Communism. Must we in the West leave all the marching to our opponent? I hope not. Not until free men get up in the morning with the feeling that they, too, are on the march will the danger to Western society begin to subside. But marching is futile unless there is a destination, and the West’s destination is fuzzy. Perhaps I should merely say that it is not clear to me. I do not think that it is discernible in the utterances of our statesmen.

  Life magazine, I see, has raised the question of the free world’s destiny with a series of pieces on “National Purpose.” The title of the series is revealing. America’s purpose, everyone’s purpose in the West, is still painted in the national frame. When we aid a friend, it is “foreign” aid. And when the aided country emerges, it gains “independence,” thus adding one more sovereign political unit to the ever-growing list of destiny seekers. When we establish a military base in some indispensable location outside our borders, we call it a base on “foreign” soil, and so it is. The U-2 plane incident disclosed an American pilot taking off from an American nook in Turkey and heading for an American nook in Norway. This famous flight illustrated the queer conditions we and our Western associates are compelled to face—a world grown so small that other people’s airfields are essential to our own safety, and ours to theirs, yet a world that has made no progress in bringing free men together in a political community and under a common roof. The West’s only roof these days is the wild sky, with its flights, its overflights, and the boom of broken barriers. Our scientists long ago broke all known boundaries, yet the rest of us work sedulously to maintain them, in our pursuits, in our prayers, in our minds, and in our constitutions. We dwell in a house one wall of which has been removed, all the while pretending that we are still protected against the wind and the rain.

  Most people think of peace as a state of Nothing Bad Happening, or Nothing Much Happening. Yet if peace is to overtake us and make us the gift of serenity and well-being, it will have to be the state of Something Good Happening. What is this good thing? I think it is the evolution of community, community slowly and surely invested with the robes of government by the consent of the governed. We cannot conceivably achieve a peaceful life merely by relaxing the tensions of sovereign nations; there is an unending supply of them. We may gain a breather by relaxing a tension here and there, but I think it a fallacy that a mere easement, or diplomacy triumphant, can ever be the whole base for peace. You could relax every last tension tonight and wake tomorrow morning with all the makings of war, all the
familiar promise of trouble.

  A popular belief these days is that the clue to peace is in disarmament. Pick a statesman of any stature in any nation and he will almost certainly tell you that a reduction in arms is the gateway to peace. Unfortunately, disarmament doesn’t have much to do with peace. I sometimes wish it had, it enjoys such an excellent reputation and commands such a lot of attention. Keeping itself strong is always a nation’s first concern whenever arms are up for discussion, and disarmament is simply one of the devices by which a nation tries to increase its strength relative to the strength of others. On this naked earth, a nation that approaches disarmament as though it were a humanitarian ideal is either suffering from delusions or planning a deception.

  Chairman Khrushchev recently asked, “Is there any . . . way which would remove the threat of war without prejudicing the interests of states?” and then answered his own question: “We see it in the general and complete disarmament of states.” Now, even if one were to believe that Mr. Khrushchev is averse to prejudicing the interests of states, one might still wonder whether any state relieved of its weapons was thereby relieved of the threat of war. I am afraid that blaming armaments for war is like blaming fever for disease. Khrushchev’s total-disarmament bid was made for the same reason he makes other bids; namely, to advance the cause of international Communism. Total disarmament would not leave anyone free of the threat of war, it would simply leave everyone temporarily without the help of arms in the event of war. Disarmament talks divert our gaze from the root of the matter, which is not the control of weapons, or weapons themselves, but the creation of machinery for the solution of the problems that give rise to the use of weapons.

  Disarmament, I think, is a mirage. I don’t mean it is indistinct or delusive, I mean it isn’t there. Every ship, every plane could be scrapped, every stockpile destroyed, every soldier mustered out, and if the original reasons for holding arms were still present, the world would not have been disarmed. Arms would simply be in a momentary state of suspension, preparatory to new and greater arms. The eyes of all of us are fixed on a shape we seem to see up ahead—a vision of a world relaxed, orderly, secure, friendly. Disarmament looks good because it sounds good, but unhappily one does not get rid of disorder by getting rid of munitions, and disarmament is not solid land containing a harbor, it is an illusion caused by political phenomena, just as a mirage is an illusion caused by atmospheric phenomena, a land mass that doesn’t exist.