It’s fun to troll through the New York Times archives. For some reason I’ve always remembered a particular end-of-year editorial that summed up the year 1997. I remember reading it and wondering how it would read years later. Now I know.

Here it is, dated January 1, 1998. How times have changed – but in some ways, not.

The Year of Living Smugly

Perhaps the most striking thing about 1997 was its power to divert. The robust economy, the continued decline in crime and the blessed respite from terrorist violence on home soil gave the nation an opportunity to focus on intensely personal news events with little overarching import — the death of Princess Diana, the ”nanny” trial and the birth of American septuplets.

It seemed, in many senses, the best of times — even the prosperous, placid 1950’s had been overshadowed by the cold war. Now, the United States is the planet’s only remaining superpower. Its most ambitious hopes for furthering Middle Eastern peace or smoothing China’s emergence as an economic and political power may not have been realized, but 1997 was still a year marked by uneasy peace in places where the mere absence of armed conflict must be counted as achievement. At home, the stock market rose more than 20 percent for the third straight year, and it was no surprise that Wall Street traders ended 1997 by releasing balloons in honor of the new horde of millionaires the market had created.

But balloons eventually pop, and the very fact that the news seemed so relentlessly positive was a bit unnerving. If the economy in 1997 was as good as it gets, did that mean that 1998 was bound to be worse? The end-of-the-year financial chaos in Asia, still threatening the world’s 11th-largest economy in South Korea, seemed to some an unsettling omen of grimmer times to come.

Every glowing statistic had a second, sobering face. Crime was down, but more police officers were dying in the line of duty — 156 in 1997, compared with 116 the year before — and experts said one of the reasons was more powerful weaponry on the streets. In New York City, the epicenter of the war on crime, spectacular new brutality cases put a pall over all the Police Department’s genuine accomplishments. The economic boom produced little benefit for the poor. Welfare rolls plummeted, but thousands of disabled children lost their Federal benefits, and many hard-working legal immigrants were forced into the soup lines after losing their food stamps. In Washington, Congress patted itself on the back for balancing the budget for the first time in 30 years, rigorously avoiding all the evidence that it was the surging economy rather than the lawmakers’ self-discipline that did the trick. Congress’s overall public image continued to be abysmal, largely because of its contemptuous disinterest in reforming the campaign finance system. The Justice Department’s failure to act on strong evidence of illegality in the Clinton-Gore re-election campaign did nothing for public confidence either. But the controversy turned Vice President Al Gore’s drive for the 2000 Presidential nomination from what looked like a sure thing to a question mark.

The President, for his part, could point to high popularity in the polls, but the substantive record was mixed. He reacted angrily to charges that he had become a caretaker chief executive, coasting toward retirement on a surging economy, the Dwight Eisenhower of the baby boomers. He could point to some real achievements, particularly in extending health coverage to more poor children. But his loss of the fast-track legislation — postwar America’s most serious renunciation of its historic trade leadership — was a blow. Many of Mr. Clinton’s friends predicted a rebound in 1998. Some speculated that he has simply been suffering from midlife golf obsession or, more likely, the funk that plagues many affectionate parents when their only child leaves the nest. While Mr. Clinton has over half his term to go, 1998 will be the year that determines whether he will be remembered for anything more positive than ending the welfare safety net.

Most Americans would be happy just to see the next 12 months bring more of the same. Our wish is more ambitious. May continued prosperity inspire the nation and its leaders with more generosity toward the people who have no reason to send up balloons in honor of their financial fortune. Americans face enormous challenges in improving opportunity for poor children, in protecting the least able from the full brunt of an unforgiving marketplace. Instead of being a waiting room for the new millennium, 1998 could launch a spectacular, compassionate finale for the epoch.