October 2 19Y2 However desirable and ultimately certain new and more just economic, social and political systems may be, the first essential of the post-war era will be titanic leadership. It will take Letters to years, perhaps generations, for Left and Right, as Professor Laski terms them, to find common ground and uni- Post-War Plans Premature? fied command-political, legal, eco- nomic, social and even religious philos- Professor Laski's Thesis Is Found to ophies, heretofore utterly irreconcil- Contain Some Flaws able and sincerely and sometimes pas- sionately held on both sides, are not going by some catalytic element of To THE EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK TIMES: man's origination suddenly to merge Despite its logic, learning and lu- because everybody has been scared to cidity I cannot conceive of any good death. That is a job for a higher end being served by the publication of power and ours not to seek to divine Professor Laski's letter of Sept. 17. or to rely on. That is not to express disagreement Is it not, therefore, wiser to confine with much of his reasoning or to cast such observations as Professor Laski's any doubt on his sincerity or the valid- ity of some of his conclusions. to the grove or the cloister lest they create distrust and rabble rousing on Time, words and energy spent on the street corners and the highways? planning or even contemplating a new order of things in the post-war world Not All Men Are Bad of tomorrow are diverted from the There are among present leaders of grim business of today. The para- the old order men of good-will who are mount and all-absorbing concern of all neither brutal, capitalists, Bourbons of us is to make dead sure in the short- nor reactionaries, who perhaps at heart est possible time that German Hitler- find much in Professor Laski's views ism, Japanese militarism and Italian that they can accept but who do not fascism have no part in it. Homely believe in miracles, or that the masses American sayings warn us not to count can be under all conditions relied on chickens before they are hatched and or their snap and biased judgments not to make a rabbit stew until one trusted, who feel it wiser to make has the rabbit. We must first win the haste slowly and that it is almost a war, and no prudent person can as yet fraud on civilization to capitalize mili- take that for granted. tary and economic disasters and mass Immediate Problem Looms destitution and fear for the advance- Professor Laski, when he talks of ment of untried political, economic and utilizing "that common sense of dan- social theories. ger which makes men ready for inno- I should have thought Professor vations," is stating in high-flown lan- Laski too much of a philosopher and guage the implementation of deathbed student of history not to realize that repentances and religious revival con- what he terms "great innovations," versions. Reasoned, sound and lasting however fine, noble and meritorious, conclusions are not arrived at with fear should not be exploited in times of such of death, disease or destitution staring stress and overwhelming doubts and most of us in the face. That was the fears that few if any keep their bal- vice of our New Deal for which we ance spiritually, morally or intel- have not yet begun to pay. Now is no lectually. HAROLD G. ARON. time to make dreams our master. New York, Sept. 30, 1942. Moreover, realism makes it crystal clear that the immediate post-war problem will be to hold on to any kind of law and order in the inevitable do- mestic and international economic chaos which is bound to exist.