Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 206, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 September 1918 — MAN IS NOW AT HIS BEST [ARTICLE]

MAN IS NOW AT HIS BEST

There Has Been No “Moral and Physical Degeneration” of the Race.

The big average height of the men drafted Into the United States army is being widely commented upon In the press, and it appears that the facts justify the favorable remarks being made, says a writer in Montreal Gazette. Records of the quartermaster’s office show that the Americans who are donning the army uniform today are bigger than the men who fought in former wars. The size most In demand for the standard army shoe in the past was 7E, while the average size of the marching shoe today is B%D and that of the field or trench shoe 9E. Two styles are issued, for it has been found by experiment that soldiers require a larger shoe for the trenches, It being necessary to wear two pairs of socks at a time in cold wet weather. Similarly, the present-day American soldier has to be provided with a size larger than his predecessor in coats, shirts and breeches. -He is a bigger man all around, which is decidedly satisfactory from the national point of view. Events in other belligerent lands Since the war began have served to prove that men generally are as strong physically and morally as ever they were In history. The long campaign in the trenches in Europe has put the soldiers to a greater test than the fighting men of the past were submitted to in the worst of the numerous old w’ars. They have stood that test, and the hundreds of thousands who survive the cannon’s blast and the rifle’s bullet will emerge physically fine specimens of manhood. It is not necessary to look to the United States or over to Europe to see that the human race has not deteriorated. Canada is a small nation compared with its tremendous neighbor and with other allies. It had a population at the census of 1911 of 7,200,000, about half of. svhom are males. Out of the young men part of this total 500,000 men have measured up to the severe medical test of the army, and some tens of thousands of others have been examined and rejected for minor defects that do not interfere with their life as civilians, and do not threaten to shorten their days appreciably. The men who were taken to the field of war have lived in the open, through the heat of summer and the cold and snow and wet of winter, and the thunder of guns has been constantly in their ears. a . The stress of the deadliest warfare has not broken their spirit, and they stand ready today to face attack from a powerful enemy and to deliver it in return. In view of these facts, the little bodies of gloomy and narrow-minded persons who meet periodically and resolve that- the race is degenerating physically and morally should rest from their croaking for the time being. Actual conditions are confounding their slanderous assertions. The race is stronger' today than ever.