Free Writings from the New Yorker 1925-1976 by E. B. White Page B

approaching to Famine, as well as Pestilence. . . . But these Reverses of Fortune dont discourage me. It was natural to expect them, and We ought to be prepared in our Minds for greater Changes, and more melancholly Scenes still.
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    So wrote John Adams to Abigail, in one of his mercurial moments, June 26, 1776. We don’t know how far into the future he was gazing, but if he were around today, celebrating our two-hundredth, he would not lack for melancholy scenes. As far as the eye can see in any direction, corruption and wrongdoing, our rivers and lakes poisoned, our flying machines arriving before the hour of their departure, our ozone layer threatened, our sea gasping for breath, our fish inedible, our national bird laying defective eggs, our economy inflated, our food adulterated, our children weaned on ugly plastic toys, our diversions stained with pornography and obscenity, violence everywhere, venery in Congress, cheating at West Point, the elms sick and dying, our youth barely able to read and write, the Postal Service buckling under the crushing burden of the mails and terrified by gloom of night, our sources of energy depleted, our railroads in decline, our small farms disappearing, our small businesses driven against the wall by bureaucratic edicts, and our nuclear power plants hard at work on plans to evacuate the countryside the minute something goes wrong. It is indeed a melancholy scene.
    There is one thing, though, that can be said for this beleaguered and beloved country—it is alive and busy. It was busy in Philadelphia in 1776, trying to get squared away on a sensible course; it is busy in New York and Chillicothe today, trying to straighten out its incredible mess.
    The word “patriot” is commonly used for Adams and for those other early geniuses. Today, the word is out of favor. Patriotism is unfashionable, having picked up the taint of chauvinism, jingoism, and demagoguery. A man is not expected to love his country, lest he make an ass of himself. Yet our country, seen through the mists of smog, is curiously lovable, in some-what the way an individual who has got himself into an unconscionable scrape often seems lovable—or at least deserving of support. What other country is so appalled by its own shortcomings, so eager to atone for its own bad conduct? What other country ever issued an invitation like the one on the statue in New York’s harbor? Wrongdoing, debauchery, decadence, decline—these are no more apparent in America today than are the myriad attempts to correct them and the myriad devices for doing it. The elms may be dying, but someone has developed a chemical compound that can be injected into the base of an elm tree to inhibit the progress of the disease. The Hudson River may be loaded with polychlorinated biophenyls, but there is an organization whose whole purpose is to defend and restore the Hudson River. It isn’t as powerful as General Electric, but it is there, and it even gets out a little newspaper. Our food is loaded with carcinogens, while lights burn all night in laboratories where people are probing the mysteries of cancer. Everywhere you look, at the desolation and the melancholy scene, you find somebody busy with an antidote to melancholy, a cure for disease, a correction for misconduct. Sometimes there seems almost too much duplication of good works and therapeutic enterprise; but at least it suggests great busyness—a tremendous desire to carry on, against odds that, in July of 1976, as in June of 1776, often seem insuperable.
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    But these Reverses of Fortune dont discourage me. . . . It is an animating Cause, and brave Spirits are not subdued with Difficulties.
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    Let us, on this important day when the tall ships move up the poisoned river, take heart from good John Adams. We might even for a day assume the role of patriot, with neither apology nor shame. It would be pleasant if we could confront the future