We hope this issue of Thornton Wilder Journal finds you well in spite of the bloody war in Ukraine continuing in its sixteenth month and democracy struggling around the world. Working on this issue, we were reminded of an address Thornton Wilder delivered on 6 October 1957 in Frankfurt am Main when he received the Peace Prize from the Association of German Publishers and Booksellers. Anticipating present-day discussions of diversity, equity, and inclusivity, Wilder spoke against the dangers of privilege and elitism in Western culture with its “thousand-years-old lies” that often saw/proclaimed women, men, and children as inferior because of their “race or color or religion.” He added: “Democracy is not only an effort to establish a social equality among men; it is an effort to assure them that they are not sons, nor subjects, nor low–that they should be equal in God’s grace” (Wilder 73). As a twentieth-century writer...
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