What we have got to have in this world is a change of heart
A mixed mailbag
The Founding Fathers cannot have intended a President and his small group of appointed advisors to perform like a monarch surrounded by his court. As if the people’s representatives and the people themselves were a general nuisance, and the job is to keep the whole tiresome bunch quiet. . .
What a black historical irony if the Free World was lost due to the tyranny of the Leader of the Free World. No sane man would believe for a minute that you win the minds and hearts of the people by bombing them. Or by financing and arming rulers whom the people detest. . .
Our country is founded on as decent principles as exist in human society, but of course principles become contemptible hypocrisy when they are only used for rhetoric, not as a faithful guide to action. If this unforgivable war has taught us to be eternally vigilant against the misuse of our power, then it will have served one valuable purpose: the education of Americans.
Martha Gellhorn
Letter to Daniel Ellsberg
1971
—Selected Letters of Martha Gellhorn
There is very little question in my mind that eventually—maybe this century, maybe next—the world will become politically unified. There is no other sensible conclusion. It may be the unity of disaster, when we all go up in a jolly burst of fissionable fuss, or, if we can hang tight awhile, it may be a more comfortable unity, when we knock some sense into each other’s heads, quit calling each other “foreigners,” and get down to business.
E. B. White
Letter to Janice White
27th April 1952
—Letters of E. B. White
The day is coming, and it is not far distant, when ordinary intelligent people are going to look upon the world as it revealed itself in the middle of the 20th century, and to ask what possibly could have driven civilized people into the hysteria and near-insanity which characterizes us now. It will be then impossible to explain how people who call themselves Christians or Jews or Mohammedans or followers of the great Buddha, could have persuaded themselves that civilization was going to be preserved and increased and broadened by world war. And yet today an extraordinary number of human beings are depending upon force, and force to the utmost, in order to accomplish what they seem to think will be a new and better world.
In that coming day we shall all know that such an idea was crazy; that neither armies nor navies, atom bombs or unlimited funds are going to remake the human soul; that what we have got to have in this world is a change of heart.
We have got to respect our fellow beings no matter what their color or race is, or their history or their present situation.
We have got to see that the poverty of the mass of men disappears, that ignorance is eliminated and that disease yields to scientific knowledge.
Then, starting upon that foundation, we have got to do justice to human beings without regard to the lines of separation that appear, and we have got, so far as is humanly possible, to give thought and desire the widest freedom compatible with the freedom and progress of all.
W. E. B. Du Bois
Letter to The Tribune
13th July 1953
—The Correspondence of W. E. B. Du Bois: Selections, 1944-1963
I think it is more difficult these days to define what makes a good citizen than it has ever been before. Certainly all any of us can do is follow our own conscience and retain faith in our democracy. Sometimes it is the very people who cry out the loudest in favor of getting back to what they call “American Virtues” who lack this faith in our country. I believe that our greatest strength lies always in the protection of our smallest minorities.
Charles Schulz
Letter to a 10-year-old fan
9th November 1970
It is curious to me that all the letters were between 1951 and 1971, did people give up hope after that?
These letters hit different when you realize they're from like 70 years ago and we're still having the same debates. Du Bois's point about needing a 'change of heart' rather than more force is profound—especially that bit about respecting people regardless of their situation. I re-read some old letters from my grandfather last month and they had the same frusterated tone about world politics. Some cycles never realy break.