Why Don't They Do Something?

Sometimes we seem to look at life as if we were watching the progress of a play in which we have no part. We sometimes seem to act as if we had no responsibility for anything that is happening around us, or anything that lies outside our own specific assignment. For example, when people are seriously hurt on the highway or stricken in public places, we may wonder why someone else doesn’t do something. He did something. When we see public or private abuses, we haven’t done our duty if we close our eyes and walk away. The arm of the law is only as long as the alertness o fits citizens, only as long as an informed and responsible public wants it to be. One policeman can’t keep the peace for a thousand people unless the thousand people want the peace to be kept and will help to keep it. And to see a situation that calls for something to be done, and then to sit back and say, “Why don’t THEY do something?” is and unsafe situation. If people privately aren’t willing to do what they should do, public agencies will have to move in more and more. And whenever we ask a public agency to do something that should be privately done, we ourselves encourage their inroads upon our personal privacy. There never was a time when communities and countries didn’t need loyal and alert citizens who are willing to exert themselves beyond their own comfort and convenience, without always asking why someone else doesn’t do something. We cannot always look elsewhere for the solution to our problems, and when we see something that should be done, when we see some abuse, when we see some emergency, it isn’t enough to sit back and say: “Why don’t THEY do something?” The sooner we understand that WE are THEY, the sooner we shall have a safer society.