Imagine you’re reading this column on March 27, 1908. A century ago women would not have the vote. The Senate of the United States would still be refusing to condemn lynching.  Even though almost 4,700 Negroes, as they were called then, would be lynched because of their race. Unions were just beginning to protect workers. Safety and child labor laws were spotty and enforcement uneven. In the past century we’ve improved.
 
I’m not saying society has overcome these problems. As the Democratic presidential primary has taught us racial and gender prejudice are still very much with us. Progress has often been three steps forward and two back.  It’s been uneven all the rocky way, but by whatever standard, we have progressed.
 
Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s determination gave women the vote. Indeed a woman is now a serious candidate for President of the United States. In June 2005 the United States Senate belatedly apologized for its past failures to condemn lynching. A host of labor laws now protect workers and children.  There has been improvement.
 
If we look back much further to the Fifth Century before Christ, Sparta and Athens were in armed conflict. Now the Peloponnesian wars are ancient history.  Since Sparta and Athens today are part of the Greek nation, war between them is unthinkable.  If they have disputes now, they are settled in the courts of modern Greece.
 
Or look at the Twelfth Century and medieval Umbria.  Assisi and Perugia were fighting. A youthful Francisco Bernadone, later to be known as Saint Francis, was a warring knight.  No longer are they in armed conflict.  Now if Assisi and Perugia have water-right disputes, they are litigated in the Italian courts.
 
We too had our civil war.  In a long bloody struggle, the North fought the South; the Union fought the Confederacy. Abolitionists opposed slaveholders, but no longer are we killing each other.  Today if Pennsylvania is in conflict with Georgia, it’s their state universities on the football field. If we would step back from our short life span and look at the long swath of history, there’s progress.  Uneven, of course, but progress.
 
Even if we take a shorter view, things have improved. In the past decades, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that violent crimes such as rape, robbery, aggravated assault, and homicide have declined. In 1973 in this country, there were about three and three-quarter million such crimes.  In 2003 there were just less than two million.  Even if we quibble about the government’s collection and interpretation of these statistics, there has been some progress. We should not conclude, however, that our crime problem is behind us. It is constantly before us. Just read our daily newspapers.
 
Technology, moreover, has given us two-edged swords.  We have the potential to destroy life as well as enhance it.  We can make “deserts bloom and lakes die.” The human race has the capacity now to obliterate the earth by nuclear war or to poison it by pollution.
 
The reasons for this dark side are greed, selfishness and arrogance. This is dramatically evident in our inability to feed the world’s victims of famine and drought. It is also apparent in our disregard for our environment. To maximize corporate profits we have not only neglected the starving but also contaminated our water, polluted our air, and tainted our soil. As Kurt Vonnegut has told us in a homely phrase we all can understand we humans have “trashed the neighborhood.”
 
Humanity has made great advances, but is now faced with earth-shattering dangers. We must resist our shortsighted greed with the spirituality of a longer view.  Like the Native Americans we should think seven generations ahead. Probably we will never taste any fruits of our efforts, but we should soldier on.  It’s good to remind ourselves that neither Susan Anthony nor Elizabeth Stanton lived long enough to vote.
 
Ultimately the answer lies in the age-old insight of the mystics: we are one.  But world trade, our interconnected economies and international politics also demand it. (This very week the Boston Red Sox and the Oakland Athletics opened the Major League Baseball season in Tokyo!) More and more we are one.  The human race is inter-dependent. Artificial barriers, including those of nation states, will continue to bend.  The League of Nations was a valiant if failed attempt.  The United Nations, the European Union and the World Court are imperfect efforts, but the trend will continue. Modern technology has made the world smaller and, for better or worse, made its nations more dependent upon each other.
 
National boundaries will not stop bird flu.  It has already spread from Asia to Europe even to wild migratory ducks in Canada. So far the strains detected in North America are not the more virulent type, but no border checkpoint will slow the spread. Neither will it stop the radioactive fallout from a nuclear bomb. Whether detonated in India, Pakistan, Israel or Korea, its fallout will poison us, our children and grandchildren.  Birds and radioactivity do not respect our artificial frontiers.
 
Humanity has advanced a long way, but there is much more we could do. Instead of cursing the darkness, light our candles. Instead drugging ourselves with television or shopping, get moving. Don’t just make a donation. Make a difference. Join the fight. Try something new. Write letters or an op-ed piece. Speak out. Run for public office.  For God’s sake do something. Finally, consider this prayer from Albert Bayly’s troubling hymn, “Lord, Whose Love in Humble Service.”
 
“Still your children wander homeless, Still the hungry cry for bread, Still the captives long for freedom, Still in grief we mourn our dead.  As you, Lord, in deep compassion, healed the sick and freed the soul, By your Spirit send your power to our world to make it whole.”  Amen.
 
Daniel O'Rourke is a married Catholic priest. Retired from the Administration at SUNY Fredonia, he lives in Cassadaga, NY.  His column appears on the second and fourth Thursday each month. He has published "The Spirit at Your Back," a book of his previous columns. You may purchased it or send comments to orourke@netsync.net