History ultimately judges right and wrong

There's a photo in the lobby of the building where I work that I pass every day, and I never thought much about it. But then, one morning, a small detail caught my eye.

The photo shows bow-tied bandleader Lawrence Welk and singer Mildred Stanley posing with a sign that says: "Keep us out of war. Be neutral."

The photo was taken Sept. 11, 1939, days after the Nazis had ignited World War II by marching into Poland. Less than a year earlier, Adolf Hitler's followers had burned hundreds of synagogues, killed nearly 100 Jews and sent 30,000 to concentration camps during two days of terror that became known as Kristallnacht — the night of broken glass. The intent of the advancing Nazi regime, therefore, couldn't have been much of a mystery.

But there were Welk and his vocalist, smiles on their faces at the Edgewater Beach Hotel, as they labored against the notion of involvement in a conflict that had already sucked in France and England. They wanted to be "neutral" in the face of Hitler. Let that sink in for a moment.

It might sound odd now, but it wasn't an unpopular sentiment at the time. The nation was still fatigued by World War I, which had ended two decades earlier with more than 100,000 American deaths. Another entanglement on the other side of the Atlantic was understandably unpalatable.

But all these years later, that photo looks, at best, hopelessly naive. There's no telling what this world would look like had fascism been left to spread through Europe, but it probably wouldn't be a place where democracy and freedom remain the ideal (even if both are often elusive). Plenty of people, including President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, had already surmised as much by 1939.

Through the lens of history, we can therefore conclude that Welk, Stanley and their isolationist brethren lacked foresight. They were, as it is said, on the "wrong side of history." And it is said often.

Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring announced in January that he wouldn't defend his state's ban on gay marriage because he wanted "to be on the right side of history." President Barack Obama has said Russia is on the wrong side of history for both its incursion into Crimea and its support of the Assad regime in Syria. A Wall Street Journal opinion writer wrote that the Obama administration is "on the wrong side of history" for its support of leftist Latin American leaders.

Before the phrase becomes so vogue that it's little more than an applause line, let's appreciate an important point: History does indeed sort out right and wrong, even as the citizens of today squabble like schoolchildren...