Tomorrow and Tomorrow – Sunday, March 09, 1941
We have lived to see the day when the best-laid plans of men have fallen short of fulfillment. Hopes and dreams and cherished ambitions have been postponed or abandoned. Many have been diverted from their intended pursuits, and many, old and young, have faced a breaking up of the pattern of their lives.
Things that men and nations have looked upon as being endowed with traditional permanence have proved to be anything but permanent. Standards have fallen; morals have weakened and died, and the well-ordered life which some have thought they could be assured of even unto the next generation, is not assured in some places beyond the passing of each hour. Presumably there is no social order, no guarantee of security, no standard of living, no territorial domain, no way of life that is free from challenge and from change. Under such conditions, there is danger of too much self-pity, too much pessimism, too much hopelessness.
To the young men whose careers are being interrupted, to the young women whose design of life is thereby changed, and to those who have lived beyond youth but whose lives are also affected and whose standards are shaken—perhaps it should be said to all—that there has never been a time when change was not upon us. No one has ever lived in a static society. It is not given to man to stop the course of events.
The best that the strongest and the wisest have ever been able to do is to help steer the course into better channels—not to check the sweep of the tide. There is an old expression that has its appeal to all of us, but which is impossible to any of us—“Backward, turn backward, O time in your flight.” We cherish it as a lovely thought, but not a thing that ever was or can be accomplished. More to the point are the words of Macbeth: “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.” And so, whether we like it or not, we must make the best of what lies before us. And perhaps the greatest thing that can come out of it all is a more real sense of values—an awareness that many have been trying to secure a way of life that was untenable. Tomorrow and tomorrow we may come to the realization that we must give more attention to laying up “treasures where rust doth not corrupt.”
Whatever our mistakes, there is now left to us to ride the course of events, but with a relentless determination to use every power and influence we have in piloting to safer channels. And after awhile, all of these things that are fleeting and passing will have gone away, and the real substance of life will be what is left. Then men will know what the prophets of all generations have been trying to tell them.
March 09, 1941
Broadcast Number 0,603