Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 January 1919 — SALVAGING MAN POWER for PEACE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

SALVAGING MAN POWER for PEACE

by William Harper Dean

Reclamation of . Mutilated Soldier One of Miracles Born of War 7 SHE fighting man who “gets it” and then, “goes west” is missed by his trenchmates, the one who gets a nice, clean wound Is envied, but the man who is struck by flying steel and leaves the lines to emerge from the hospital a legless, armless or sightless by-product of w’ar is pitied from the depths of his comrades’ hearts. Artillerymen pray that when they are hit they will not be mutilated for life; so do infantrymen. For they sicken at the thought of passing the remainder of their days a burden to themselves and others, objects of pity and charity. Death is the least toll of war. But now comes the miracle, just another which has been born of the most colossal war: The reclamation of the mutilated man, the refitting of him to return to civil life the worker of his own destiny, without aid of charity or pity or pension. The armless will return to their trades and professions, the blind will work alongside the sighted by grace of a superdeveloped seventh sense, the legless may take up their work where they left it to join the colors, or else equip themselves for a new object in life and ask no special concessions from their whole-limbed competitors nor from any man.

More Than Makeshift. Mechanical ingenuity -has devised the artificial arm and leg which is something more than a makeshift for partially concealing the loss of a limb. With sufficient training in its use a man equipped with such an arm can shave himself "with an open razor, a sept which many a man with both HFfHs iHtaet will not attempt.

He can grasp a whetstone and sharpen a scythe or hold a delicate tool at a lathe for work demanding the finest precision. From his new training the blinded man emerges capable of efficient work at,the same lathe or making furniture 7 in open competition with employees with\unimpaired sight. It all rests with fbe individual —whether he applies himself with new hope and enthusiasm to the tasfk of refitting himself for a prouseful career.. France furnishes well nigh Innumerable examples of the new surgery and“the new training of men who to all Intents and purposes have been handicapped for life. Throughout the republic re-educational schools for mutlles have been established and are graduating men and returning them to the channels of peace time occupations at a marvelous rate. A mutlle who has lost bls right arm is set to work performing simple exercises with his left, such as cutting out squares and ovals from sheets of thin copper. After five or six* weeks of this elementary training in gny American Red Cross or French re-ed-ucational school, his left hand begins to develop some of the skill looked for from a man’s right grm. Soon he is able to write with his left, and ’ eventually he forgets the loss of the other member. Time and Patience Needed. Then comes the attachment of the ' ingenious mechanical arm to the stub ; of his right. It takes time and pa- ! tience to learn to operate its springs j and levers and damps, for every operation must be managed from the shoul- I der and remaining section of. the arm. ■ To the “wrist” of this artificial mem-, ■r .< - ‘ J

ber the mutile learns to attach a score of hooks and clasps, each designed to perform a particular function. With these attachments he can hold a pen and write, hold a book for reading, whittle with a knife, sweep with a broom, use his knife at the table for cutting his food. - An artificial thumb, wonderfully Constructed to replace the Jost naturalmember, enables him to grasp objects between thumb and forefinger. Farm work is notoriously hard work, calling for skill as well as for a strong, active body behind It. France is returning her wounded soldiers to the soil at a rate little short of miraculous. A Poilu, leaving the hospital after amputations, enters one of the Red Cross or French re-educational schools. Let us say he has lost both legs and that he was originally a worker in vineyards in the south of France. Naturally he wants to go back to his home section when he has been discharged,' and the great hope in his heart is that he will in some way be able to re-enter the old life. “But I have lost both legs,” he tells the official who is making a preliminary study of his case. “These new ones are excellent, monsieur, but I cannot prune vines again.” “Quite so, but you can be taught to do useful work sitting down.” “But, monsieur, one cannot prune vines that way.” - "■ “Exactly. But I have something else in mind. Your grape harvest is gathered in baskets, is it not? How would you like to learn basket-weav-ing? There is need for such work in your home section.”

Desires Are Consulted. It goes that way, No mutlle is set to work at a new task without having his natural desires consulted. If he wants work In agriculture, there is something which he can be taught to do. If it is a factory he longs for, his artificial hand will be trained for the factory. I have seen French mutiles from the farming sections of France, who before 1 the'; war~phyweci behind a-pair of oxen, being taught the intricacies of the mechanical tractor. And 1 have seen these same men going out to plow once more —not as peasants behind oxen, but as skilled tractor operators, whose false arms or legs equipped them to compete successfully with highly trained men who haVe lost neither. And I have seen a inutile who had lost both arms in battle climb nimbly to his seat on a farm cart and drive .off. illustrations might be multiplied, . but would be superfluous. The re-edu-cational system in operation abroad and in America holds a deeper signtt<cance and interest than its application' of advanced surgery and mechanics in re-equipping men for the tasks of peace. The significant feature of It in France, for Instance, Is that these wen emerge from the welter of’itell, minus arms and legs, sometimes blind, to return to civil life better equipped then in prewar days. The education of the French peasant in the pa.st has been largely a matter of utilizing ancient methods. Men have plowed with oxen because their grandfathers did; neither had the advantage of trashing in advanced agriculture. But the peasant ’who leaves a re-educational school and returns to the ’soil is no longer content to farm in the old way. . ♦ ° The Great Awakening. He has learned the economy of tractor plowing and of seed drills and- of manure spreaders. He hßj»*4t<fned the principles and practical side of

modern dairying and orcharding. He will not be satisfied to use his new arm or leg as he used the old. It has been the great awakening for him and his kind, and unconsciously or purposely he will spread the contagion of the new’ order of things in the midst of the old. Industry throughout the world must not close its eyes to the inevitable fact that following the war re-equipped men who have sacrificed sight and limbs for their country will come back to take their {daces alongside the w’hole. They will come back efficient men, asking no sympathy, asking no special concessions from employers or those with whom they work shoulder" to shoulder. The world is not going to be flooded with idle, saddened objects of pity and "charity. That, too, belongs to the old order of things. In the readjustment of every nation's economic and industrial life following the demobilization of the armies the men reclaimed from piutilation will demand and receive their full share of the task. This is one“of the war’s most sublime achievements, second only to the everlasting defeat of military autocracy.