holds them under moral obligation to open their shops or factories to disabled men who may be qualified for their particular lines of work. Those employers, if any there be, who would seek to exploit the disabled, by means of discrimination in wages for equally good work with uninjured men or otherwise, should be smitten with the lash of public scorn and condemnation. If possible, the goods of such a man should be boycotted, the offender made to feel himself a pariah indeed, his name anathema and a warning to others who would profit by the disadvantages of helplessness of these disabled men who are putting up a brave fight to sustain themselves as civilians. Conversely, the employers who give a fair chance and a square deal to the retrained men should be sustained by public opinion and the more substantial evidence of approval accorded.

The people who have remained at home backing up the armies with money and munitions, should feel a keen comradeship with the soldiers from the front, for they are, in fact and in truth, all soldiers in a glorious common cause, each serving according to his or her ability and fitness. Toward the disabled soldier they should feel only that by fortunate circumstance he has been able to give more, to give of his very self, of his blood instead merely of his possessions or a lesser service. When he was lying wounded and helpless in No Man's Land, slowly perishing for want of assistance, his comrades risked a thousand forms of death and brought him back to safety. They did it unselfishly, gladly, and as a privilege. They needed no orders, no suggestions, no exhortation. It was the spontaneous feeling of comradeship, the esprit de

corps, the instant recognition of brotherhood in a common cause and duty beyond mere regulations. The menace of death itself could not hold them back; the thought of self was as base as the bloody mud about their feet. It was a sublime privilege to make the sacrifice, if need be an exaltation of spirit and a transcending of the command, "Love thy neighbor as thyself," for no man would voluntarily have gone out into that Golgotha on a mission of his own.

So it is the duty of the ununiformed soldiers who have fought the good fight here at home, whether by sweating under the blazing sun to see that the armies were fed, or by denying themselves to furnish funds or by more direct forms of service, to cultivate that same conception of oneness with the fighting man, that readiness to stand by him and for him, to rescue him and aid him in disaster, to march side by side with him in fair weather as in foul. The disabled man who is putting up a glorious fight against adverse circumstances must not be allowed to perish out in the No Man's Land of selfish indifference here at home. We must be as ready for rescue as the powdergrimed, bloody fighters in the advanced trenches. We have no bullets to face, no shells, no mines, but the barbed entanglements of selfishness, the insidious poison gas of indifference, we must fight across and over and under and against every day-a Hindenberg Line it is the achievement of some few of us finally to vanquish.

Such should be the attitude toward the disabled man. He is our brother, our more privileged comrade, and by proxy the man to whom was given the power and the glory of doing on the actual battlefield

what all of us in our hearts fervently wished we could do. We should not overwhelm him with ill-considered adulation for a while and then forget him, or turn his head with flattery for having done his duty; but there should be accorded him that brotherly recognition that is deeper and more lasting than the mere enthusiastic acclaim given returning, successful warriors to the home and headquarters of the real Grand Army of the Republic, of which every loyal citizen is upon the muster rolls.

CHAPTER XXV

THE LARGE PROBLEM: SALVAGING THE DISABLED OF

INDUSTRY

Industry takes annually as great a toll of man power as war on a colossal scale Fourteen thousand annually permanently crippled in industry - Additional ravages of tuberculosis and occupational diseases — Estimates of specific disabilities-Total loss of man power through non-fatal industrial accidents - The organization for vocational rehabilitation of the war disabled to be devoted to its salvage The movement in Congress - The pending legislation.

If the United States maintained an army of 1,500,.000 men in the field, year after year, and this army was engaged in constant hostilities, its annual output of permanently incapacitating disablements would just about equal the number of those resulting annually from industrial accidents, despite the advance made in safeguarding workers, and despite the constant preaching of "safety first" to the workers themselves.

The estimate of 14,000 industrial accidents resulting in permanent disablement annually does not take into consideration the ravages of tuberculosis. This disease is recognized as having in many cases a direct, causal relation to conditions of employment or to conditions of living for which wage standards and other conditions of employment are responsible. The Army recognizes tuberculosis as a cause of permanent disability and discharges men who have contracted it as unfit for military service. If tuberculosis and other

occupational diseases were counted as permanent disabilities, it would be found that the annual output of permanently disabled from industry would equal, if it did not considerably exceed, that from an army of more than 2,000,000 men in active campaigning. We are appalled at the wastage of war, yet we are subjected to an annual drain upon our man and woman power in profound peace equals to that created by a colossal army engaged wholly in the business of destruction.

The above estimate of the number of industrial cripples was arrived at from the industrial-accident reports of seven important states-Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, California and Washington, the figures covering in most cases a period of three years. The injuries taken for the purposes of the estimate are amputations of arms, hands, legs and feet, total loss of sight of one or both eyes, and permanent impairment of the use of these members to the extent of more than 50 per cent. In order to make the estimate applicable to the entire United States, the computation was made upon the basis of the ratio of the permanent disabilities to the number of industrial fatalities. This was adopted as the most suitable basis as there is a reasonably accurate estimate of the number of industrial fatalities. On this basis of 22,500 industrial fatalities each year, the estimates of annual permanent disablements are as follows: loss of arm, 810; loss of hand, 1,310; loss of leg or foot, 1,600; loss of eye or of sight, 4,981; and of permanent impairments of more than 50 per cent. arm, 930; hand, 3,000; leg, 680; foot, 540; eye, 74; making a total of 13,900, or approximately