Page:Report on the Memorial Meeting for Mahatma Gandhi.djvu/30

 strength of the union of plain people in faith, and peace, and common purpose is a catastrophe not only for India, hut for the whole tortured world.”

LYMAN BRYSON, Counsellor on Public Affairs, Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc.:

“I regret that it will be impossible for me to attend the memorial service and join in the tribute to Mahatma Gandhi. I hope, however, that you will associate my name with the deep respect that you will pay at that time to your great leader.”

PEARL S. BUCK. Nobel Prize Winner, Author and Honorary President of the India League of America:

“In a strange profound way Gandhi, since his death, has become a test for India. Since his death, dramatic and symbolic of the struggle of his whole life, has lifted him, as upon a cross, far higher than he has ever been before. Those who thought lightly of him because they did not understand his faith and his teachings, are struck silent, for the moment. By his martyrdom he has thrown the final challenge to his people.

“Will India acknowledge the rightness of Gandhi or will she repudiate him? This is the question which the world now waits to see answered. If the people of India repudiate him, then they sink at once to the level of all other quarrelling, unreasoning peoples. But if they uphold non-violence, at all costs, if they demand peace first, in order to settle their differences without bloodshed, India achieves the greatness and the unique spiritual strength necessary today for world leadership.

“Never was such a challenge given in such difficult times. It will take miracles of self-control on the part of leaders and people alike. But let them be strengthened by this one fact: Gandhi was right. Only by determined non-violence can the world be saved today. Reason, arbitration, conferences, nothing is enough. Non-violence must come first. Non-violence which is deep enough and strong enough to become a faith, absolute in its