Looking Back...

TO OUR READERS and FRIENDS:
The New Year is the traditional season of hope. Hope for a lasting peace. Hope for a speedy reunion with loved ones far distant. Hope for happiness and hope for health.
Each of us has a stake in this harvest of hope. How we reap will depend on how we cultivate the opportunities that lie ahead.
Just as a merchant takes stock at the beginning of a New Year and closes his books on the Old, so we at this season ought to take mental inventory and do some spiritual bookkeeping. The past is good only as its achievements strengthen us for the tasks of the future--only as its mistakes teach us lessons for the improvement of tomorrow.
The road of the past was paved with injustice, discontent and tyranny. We must pave the road of the future with hope, confidence, understanding and neighborliness.
The world is no better or no worse than we ourselves make it. It is the sum of thousands of communities like our own, all added together. We each have responsibilities as individuals and citizens to make it better.
With the coming of 1946, let us resolve to work and live so that peace on earth may be a reality rather than a dream. Then the horrors of battle will not be visited on the next generation and the sons of tomorrow will not have to go forth to war.
The future offers challenging opportunities. Strengthen by our nation’s achievements in the past four years, we can meet these opportunities with confidence.
So it is with a spirit of hope, fortified by a feeling of thankfulness that this newspaper asks for every one of you A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR.
Mr. and Mrs. Arthur J. Theiler
<strong>What’s Important For The New Year</strong>
This is the time of the year when we think of turning over a new leaf and starting a New Year, and goodness knows, we’re all ready to turn over the pages of 1945 and start out 1946 afresh.
Every new year brings with it new opportunities and responsibilities of various kinds--in our homes, community, the nation and the world.
Perhaps, in the past few years when mothers and fathers and children were all busy and working long hours, many of our homes and families have been neglected. May we begin 1946, by first of all fulfilling our responsibilities toward our own families, others in our homes and those employed by us.
Then there is the duty to our community. Ours is a community that we can be proud of but we must not be so blind as to think that no improvements can be made here. Our New Year’s for New Glarus and the surrounding country is that young and old, lifelong residents here and newcomer, ex-servicemen and others, farmers, business men, housewives, laborers, and professional people work together as individuals and organizations for the better of our home town.
In our country, too, there is much to be done. Most of the re-conversion legislation and planning is in the hands of those we have elected to serve us and there is not so much that we can do except to be informed on what is going on and putting in a word for what we things is right here and there.
And, definitely, the whole world needs our help as never before. The need for food and clothing is still great in many parts of the world and in our small way we can add our help to that of millions of other sympathetic people in our country.
The word comes from Europe that unless more clothing is sent, and sent immediately, many, many will freeze to death and food will be needed. The National Victory clothing collection will be made in January. In New Glarus, the Lions Club will sponsor the drive and will be assisted by other organizations in packing and shipping the clothing, as before. More definite instructions will be given soon, so let’s go through our closets and attics once more, now, and help to keep at least one hundred and fifty million people in Europe along who are dreadfully under clad as a result of the war, to live.
May we start out the New Year, thankfully, go through the year together as friends and come to the close of 1946, feeling that we really have accomplished something worthwhile as a family, community and as a nation.