Dec. 10, 1962 - American author John Steinbeck (right) accepted his Nobel Prize for Literature in Stockholm today. After expressing his gratitude to the Swedish Academy for honoring his work, Mr. Steinbeck declared that “humanity has been passing through a gray and desolate time of confusion.” Today’s writer, he said, “is charged with exposing our many grievous faults and failures, with drudging up to the light our dark and dangerous dreams for the purpose of improvement.” These days, he said, man has “usurped many of the powers we once ascribed to God.” “Fearful and unprepared,” he continued, “we have assumed lordship over the life and death of the world and all living things. The danger and the glory of the choice rest finally in man. The test of his perfectibility is at hand.”
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