The West Virginia Digest

A Higher And Better Destiny
By EMMET J. SCOTT
WASHINGTON. D. C.-President Roosevelt, following Wendell Willkie's clarion call for national unity last week, gave America this week a pledge of his purpose also to work for and toward the same end during his Third Term.

It thus seems there is general agreement that a new era of good feeling needs to be established in the United States.

Undoubtedly, we are in one of the worst crises in our history-this is the statement of a Democratic newspaper. The Richmond Times-Dispatch!--when the country is in peril, when its defenses are inadequate, and when its fiscal position is far, very far, from reassuring.

The Presidential Election of 1940 afforded all who voted a right to feel they discharge an obligation to the nation which may have some influence on the future of their fellow citizens and upon mankind in general.

To this extent, they, all, should feel satisfied. It is, as has been said, as much a duty to accept the verdict as it was to participate in its pronouncement.

When this has been said, it still remains true that some disappointments, some heart-burnings, and many regrets still exist.

These will be put aside. National unity, national strength, and national integrity will be preserved. Upon these depend the future of our country.

The fact that the defeated Candidate ran so close a race, and proclaimed ideals which were supported by nearly one-half of the voting population call for a modesty, a forbearance, and a magnanimity which it is expected will be forthcoming from the victor.

The Negro Group during the coming four years will continue to call to the attention of Congress and the President those grievous wrongs which still exist in Government and in our country as far as they are concerned.

As the maintenance of a "strong, alert, watchful" opposition--to use Wendell Willkie's words,--without any sacrifice of loyalty, is the essence of American democracy, so this largest minority group of our country's population must protest every political wrong and every act of injustice, and every situation which would deny to them their rightful status as citizens of the Republic.

There can be no compromise with wrong. In the effort to achieve that national unity of which we hear so much these days, it will be remembered that democracy to be made workable must take into account the welfare of all the people, the humblest along with the most exalted -and that votes alone do not solve great moral questions.

"Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just". The quarrel of this group is just! Democracy will not have come to America until every underprivileged group has equal protection under the law, and enjoys all of the rights and privileges of our common American heritage.

That higher and better destiny we seek for our country will be achieved only as ungrudgingly we accept these fundamental truths.