Title: Essay: "Preparation for Peace", (denshopd-p180-00003)
Densho ID: denshopd-p180-00003

Grayce Kaneda

August 22, 1942

PREPARATION FOR PEACE

Youth is a time of aspiration, high hopes, and dreaming, but when the poets tell us this they do not tell us all. 1942, we find all youths living in a chaotic world, facing all of life's grim realities. 1942 has brought its peculiar hardships for all people. We find many shifting scenes taking place -- hurried marriages with soldier husbands leaving their loved ones, some perhaps never to see each other again; sudden luxurious living for those whose wages have fluctuated to a new high; material and personal sacrifices from those who are sincerely patriotic so that democracy can be retained in this nation founded "by the people, for the people, and of the people."

In the midst of all this confusion we find the Japanese-Americans facing a new life, contributing their share for the ultimate victory of America by cooperating fully in this evacuation program and placing full confidence in their government.

The world we live in today presents a challenge to youthful spirits. Are the youth of today to react in the "Flapper Fanny-Jezz" reaction of the last World War are to profit by the experience of the last generation and face this present situation more sanely and more adequately.

Can we lay ample foundation for character and knowledge so that we shall be prepared for the future peace? Yes, I believe we can. The individual's preparation for peace is indeed the important factor.

Our world is sadly aching for understanding people. To understand each other is the basis for good will. We must educate ourselves to the needs of others. Too many of us have been so engrossed in developing our mind through volumes of books that we have blinded ourselves to the sufferings of our neighbor. Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin and many others developed their inner self while they added to their knowledge. We become conscious of what is happening in the rest of the world when it is too late. Let us look about ourselves and improve our own circle of life before we begin to criticize this world of ours. Are we not the ones who make the world of today?

"One of the great dividing lines in human life," Percy Ainsworth wrote, "is the threshold line." On one side of that line, he said, a man has his world within the world; on the other side lies the larger life of mankind, wherein also we find our places and do our work. In our preparation for peace those of us who live within our own world must look ahead to the other side of the line and see that all mankind fits into the continuance of civilization.

Our next consideration is the definite need for education in cooperation.

It is said that "ignorance is bliss" but there are so many kinds of harmful ignorance. One of those and ignorance is to think that one can get further by one's self rather than cooperating with each other. Pooling

Together as many possible resources of various individuals should mean a greater possibility for success and happiness for everyone concerned. Previously, there has been a definite lack of cooperation among the Japanese people. Kagawa has many a times pointed out that the Japanese people seem to take delight in knocking each other down if anyone manages to climb higher. Greed, grasping, endless asking of enriching ones' self will never bring peace to mankind. A wise man once said, "I and me and mine was his going astray and his fall."

And now we come to the question, "What shall I do?" We are always facing that question, sometimes as casually as a leaf falls, sometimes in poignancies of perplexity. In seasons of confusions when every resource seems exhausted, it becomes life's ultimate question. Those of us who hope to take the challenge of that question must try to develop the qualities of understanding and cooperating with each other. We must forget about that constant look for approval or disapproval in the faces of men. They court no human favor, they look toward nobler issues and let the faces about them register as they may.

There does, then, remain in shaken times an order that cannot be shaken and our time must find it or perish. The Nisei must be prepared to be capable of this new order. It is not in region of force. �Our guns shake the earth and fortresses fall. It is not in the region of pride and power; they only load and aim the guns. It must be in some sustaining confidence that right and wrong are in their destined issue invulnerable, that in the long last right makes might; that life is the true wealth; that outraged justice finally vindicates its sovereignty; that good-will will outlast and overcome hatred and heal its hurts.

John Maxwell has said, "Life is an everchanging trail that leads from the cradle to the grave. And when I reach its distant end and start on the long journey from which no traveler has ever returned, I hope to leave behind, a world, made better by my having lived."