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THE SE MI-WEEKLY JOURNAL
ATLANTA, GA., 5 NORTH FORSYTH ST. \
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The Journal's Service Flag
in honor of the sixty-nine Atlanta Journal men
who have entered the service of their country. The
two white stars are in memory of Captain Meredith
Gray and Captain James S Moore, Jr.. Journal men.
who gave their lives for our country in France
• -
Prussianism Must Be Crushed.
Let ft not be assumed that the pro-German
voices so voluble in America before we entered the
war are all dead simply because they are silent.
They will be heard again pleading the cause of
Prussianism as faithfully as before, though by a
different tack. They will be heard in whining ad
vocacy of a truce when Germany, beaten almost to
surrender, makes another insidious peace proposal;
or in appeals for leniency to the Hun when Amer
ica and her allies, completely victorious at last,
come to dictate terms that will make the world safe
indeed for democracy and civilization.
"It is men like us. and not fire-eaters in control
at this moment, who can draw up terms of peace
satisfactory to everybody.” These are the recent
words of a German scholar in the United States,
whose conduct since this country entered the war is
described as "exemplary.” He means by "fire-eat
ers,' of course, those who insist upon the necessity
of bringing Prussianism to a strict accounting for
its crimes; those who contend that our heroic sacri
fices would be in vain if the Potsdam intrigueis
were left free to devise another vast raid; those
who believe that the only path to enduring peace
is that which the sword of unwavering Justice bids
us .ake.
In commenting on the now “exemplary” Ger
man scholar's significant remark, Harold Lamb of
the Vigilantes interestingly points out that "certain
newspapers known to the secret service are waiting
under a guise of patriotism” for a chance to serve
the German cause again. "Hints of the coming
efforts of these agents.” he says, "are discernible.
A semi-socklistic magazine prints an article at
tacking "the dominant Anglo-Saxon" class in Amer
ica, ana stating that the "misdeeds of this class'*
will strengthen the voice of those foreigners here
who are "enemies within, only because we have
made them so.” Utterances like this and that of
the "exemplary" German scholar are faint portents
of what may be expected when the Hun reaches the
day of his grim reckoning; for then he will need
his scribes and spokesmen in this country worse
than ever before, and they will plead his cause
more subtly than ever.
They will not plead in his name, of course;
they will put on a camouflage of "fair play,” and
* mercy" and ••reconciliation.” They will renew
their old attempts to beget prejudice and distrust of
our allies, particularly our English-speaking allies,
to whom we are joined by deep ties of a common
interest in the future as well as by long ages of a
common ancestry and tradition. They will do their
utmost, these revocalized friends of the Hohenzol
lern, to make American influence both in the ap
proach to a peace conference and in the final
framing of terms count for German advantage.
They will seek, in the first instance, to bring about
a negotiated peace before Germany is beaten in
contestably. That attempt failing, they will seek to
engender a sentiment for letting Germany off with
out punishment for its monstrous crimes.
Tht United States entered this war with no
thought of selfish gain, but for the supremely im
portant purpose of crushing Prussianism, which
threatened, and still threatens, our freedom along
with that of all mankind. Until that purpose is j
achieved once for all. neither expediency nor honor
will permit us to lay down our arms. Not in a
spirit of hard vindictiveness, but for the sake of un
sullied justice and enduring peace, America and her
co-defenders of civilization against the Hun must
see to it that his murderous power shall never
again rise as a menace to the world. That cannot
be accomplished through a peace negotiated with
cae unconquered Hohenzoilerns, nor can it be ac- .
complished -.•.rough any peace terms that leave mili
taristic Germany means or hope of revival. If we
are to make this war more than a terrible and
fruitless adventure. Prussianism must be forced to
unconditional surrender and then must be stripped
of the last vestige of its favor with the German peo
ple and of ils power to start another war. This
means that condign punishment must be meted out
to the Potsdam criminals It means that the Ger
man people must be made to realize that the war
which their rulers launched and which they encour
aged. instead of being the dazzlingly profitable en-_
terprise they expected, is an immeasurable disaster
and shame to their nation.
Peace terms which fail to drive that truth un
sparingly home to Germany's heart will be essen
tially pro-Prussian and a mere interlude between
this and another world-shaking war. It Js. there
fore, the duty of all who love freedom and justice
and who hope for a lasting peace to rebuke the
shallow pacifist and pro-German pleas which are
almost certain to be made.
%
A
THE ATLANTA SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, ATLANTA, GA FRIDAY, AUGUST 16, 1918.
The U-Boats Over Here.
The bold submarine raids on fishing schooners
and oil tankers off the North Atlantic coast mere
ly emphasize the U-boat’s failure as an instrument
of ‘real warfare. The Hun's obvious design in
wasting powder on these trivial adventures is to
divert America's attention from the crucial line
of transports and supply ships to France, just as
he sent air pirates against peaceful English vil
lages in hopes of drawing airplanes from the bat
tlefront. He would not pause at petty forays if
he could go further.
Interesting light is thrown on the situation by
the recent statement of Premier Lloyd-George
that at least one hundred and fifty U-boats have
been destroyed, "more than half in the course of
the last year.” This goes far toward explaining
why the remnants of the pack now choose, tor the
most part, to prey upon fishing schooners and
other comparatively unimportant craft instead of
plunging into the real fight. An average de
struction of more than six U-boats a month is
enough to give the aggressor pause. Though it
be granted that Germany would have no trouble
in replacing the boats, she certainly would be
put to it in replacing the crews. With her man
power, both for industrial and military needs, at
low ebb she must he piucned to the extreme to
find men fitted for the peculiarly exacting tasks of
submarine operation.
This is borne out in the continued decrease
of the U-boat toll of merchant shipping. Losses
were less in July than in June, less in June than
in May, and far and away less in May than in
the same month of 1917. A year ago ships were
being sunk faster than we were building them;
now they are being built at the rate of one hun
dred thousand tons a month in excess of losses
from submarines, accidents and all other causes.
The U-boat, though not eliminated, is manifestly a
failure as far as its effect on the war is con
cerned.
We may expect the pirates to continue harry
ing our coasts at intervals, and we shall be singu
larly blessed if they make no more inroads than
hitherto upon our line of trans-Atlantic communi
cation. Not for a moment could we afford to relax
the vigilance of safeguards or the aggressiveness
of our anti-submarine war or the energy of our
snipbuilding. But let no one be disturbed in
mind over the U-boats’ present demonstrations off
our shores. Their resort to these tactics, for the
purpose of diverting attention from our three
thousand-mile warpath across the sea, is an ad
mission of weakness and failure.
General March has added his condemnation to
the use of the word Sammy for our American sol
diers. This is not enough. The censor should ex
ercise his authority, too.
From Farm Boys and Girls.
The boys and girls' farm clubs in the United
States will produce this year, it is conservatively
reckoned, upwards ot ten million dollars’ worth of
foodstuffs —corn, meat, vegetables and other essen
tial sinews for a nation at war. This output is in
itself a substantial contribution to the country’s
needs. Many mouths can be fed and many a day’s
ration provided for our defenders at the front by
the fruits of these young patriots’ labor. But record
has another value too great to be measured in terms
of money or of immediate results.
We mean the value of their example, their influ
ence, their demonstrations and discoveries. These
will count incalculably for the progress of the farm
and the enrichment of rural life. There are approxi
mately two and a half million boys and girls en
rolled in the corn clubs. Dig clubs, canning clubs
and kindred organizations. Imagine the enthusiasm
which this army of youthful workers pours into
the affairs of the farm and the farm community.
Striving to excel in some particular field of agricul
ture or animal husbandry or domestic arts, and
spurred on by hopes of winning the honors or tangi
ble rewards which are offered, they muster all their
heart and mind and energy into the cause before
them. And that cause is nothing less than the pro
motion of scientific methods of agriculture and the
upbuilding of all rural interests, human as well as
economic.
It is not to be wondered, then, that American
farming and farm life have advanced so notably
since the boys and girls’ clubs were organized. In
no part of the United States have they received
heartier encouragement than in Georgia, and no
where else have they made more admirable records
or accomplished more substantial results. One of
this State’s proudest possessions is its boys and
girls’ farm clubs.
A Brutal Pair.
How w</ll Turkey emulates the greed as well
as the cruelty of its German ally appears in its
recent declaration of war claims. These include,
in addition to the return of Palestine and Syria
and other territory w-hich the British have wrested
from Moslem rule:
The establishment of Turkish suzerainty
over Persia and of Turkish domination over
the entire Black Sea; the appointment of
Turkish viceroys in the Crimea and Caucasus;
the return by Bulgaria of the southern part
of the Dobrudja; the cession to Turkey of
the French and Italian possessions in north
ern Africa, and also the Island of Cyprus,
now a British possession; the retention of
Armenia with undisturbed power over its
persecuted people.
These roaring terms, summarized by the New
York Herald from the Ottoman paper Aati. reflect
the essential kinship between the Turk and the
Hun. As the latter butchered women and chil
dren in Belgium, so did the former in Armenia. -
As Germany would keep its brutal clutch on the
Belgian and French and Russian lands that it
has pillaged, so would Turkey extend and perpet
uate its barbarous rule. What hope of peace or
of civilization would there be if this pair should
have its way?
The Turkish terms are, of course, an echo of
German pnrpo-e arid policy; (he Sublime Porte
is simply a sub-station of the Berlin power house.
Ottoman rule over the vast and opulent regions
which Turkey claims would amount to German
rule and would give the Potsdam criminals
wealth and power beyond reckoning. Crush Ger
man militarism, and we shall rid the world for
ever of the smear and stench of Turkish outrages.
But let German militarism emerge from this war
unconquered, and those outrages will grow still
blacker. They are well paired- the Christian
killing Turk and the baby-killing Hun--brothers
alike in their cruelty and their greed.
0«r Prodigious Shipbuilding.
What prodigies o£ energy and skill are being
performed in the building of our war merchant
marine, the latest report of the Emergency Fleet
! Corporation fairly attests. July alone saw the
i launching of one hundred and twenty-three vessels
• having a deadweight tonnage of six hundred and
thirty-one thousand nine hundred and forty-four,
while forty-one vessels were constructed from first
to last within that month. But this is merely a
beginning. At Hog Island alone, whose first
launching was celebrated the other day, produc
tion is expected to go steadily forward at an aver
-1 age minimum rate of one complete ship for every
four-and-twenty hours.
“American shipping," comments the New York
Journal of Commerce, "soon will be taking the
place of such foreign vessels as are requisitioned
or have been placed at our disposal for taking
men and supplies over for the expanding war opera
tions. Then more and more shipping will be re
leased for the general merchant service with neu
tral countries the world over.” This latter accom
modation will be greatly to the advantage of allied
interests both now and in the post-bellum future.
But the paramount value is in the assurance of
means for maintaining our three-thousand-mile
line of communication across the Atlantic.
A conquest of the submarine would have been
unavailing after all if we had lacked ships to ply
the safeguarded ocean paths. Our navy's admi
rable work would be largely negatived if there were
no steadily increasing merchant fleet to bear
sinews of war to our boys "over there.” There will
be many factors in the victory which is certain to
be won at last, but none more substantial than
that of the energy and skill of our shipbuilding.
WOUNDED SOLDIERS ARE
QUICKLY CURED
Modern Surgery; new kinds of treatment re
claim many men for the army.
A larger percentage of Germany’s soldiers than
the outside world imagines are those reclaimed
from what have heretofore been regarded as fatal
wounds received in battle. Modern surgery has
brought back, and rebuilt, thousands that in other
conflicts would have been invalided for the remain
der of the war. Where a man is rendered incap
able of doing front military duty, he is sent into in
dustrial lines to release a person physically fit.
What percentage of its wounded Germany is
able to put back into active service can not be de
termined, but it is interesting to know that sur
gery and scientific treatment of wounded has pro
gressed to such an extent in the American army
that 80 per cent of the wounded are returned to
the forces for duty within three or four weeks. In
order that this percentage may be maintained, and
even increased, Surgeon General Gorgas has estab
lished special classes of instruction for a sleeted
corps of medical officers, in which information for
the latest treatments is imparted. What surgery
and scientific treatment has been the means of ac
complishing in reclaiming the injured will be one
of the most interesting chapters of the war, but no
less interesting is a study of some of the disabili
ties this war has produced, yet little heard of in
prior wars, if at all. In this class is shell shook,
the crash to the nervous system that comes as a
result of bombardments. It might be also said that
no war has before, produced the noise of this one,
and that concussions have never been experienced
as continuous and heavy.
The ordinary shell shock is calculated to leave
the subject in pretty much the physical attitude as
of the time the shock is received. That is to say,
while nothing*4s wrong organically the nervous
function is absent. Surgeons have made an especial
study of this condition, and how to bring the af
flicted one out of it. One system in Europe involves
the use of suggestion and music under which daul
influence the patient is brought j)qck to normal
status. A surgeon being asked why mesmerism
would not be valuable, replied that the patient, in
order to be reclaimed, would have to depend upon
his own will rather than that of another.
A small percentage of those receiving shell
shocks are stricken dumb as an added affliction, and
this condition presents one of the most difficult
with which the surgeon has to deal. The man
can hear, but is unable to utter a word. He could
make a sound, but does not realize it His one fear
is that he is doomed for the remainder of his life,
whereas, in k fact, all he needs is to be led back
into the use of his faculties and with that process
goes the dispatch of fear. A simple treatment has .
been worked out by a surgeon in Europe, whereby
the patient is taken into a room by the surgeon and
one assistant. Standing before the patient the sur
geon suggests that the patient wants to speak. He
nods that he does.
“All right, take a deep breath,” instructs the
medical officer. When this is completed the assist
ant delivers a quick blow against the ribs, virtually
knocking the wind out of the man forcing him to
utter a gutteral sound.
' "There, you spoke!” says the officer; “now try
it by yourself—take a deep breath and get it out.”
The patient goes it alone this time, frequently
with results, but if not, then he is jabbed against
the ribs a second time, and again, until finally he
begins talking under his own power. This process,
so the surgeon related, require anywhere from a
few minutes to hours, and usually the operators
are as much exhausted as the subject at its conclu
sion.
Another affliction is shell blindness, the shock
taking a peculiar form in its effect upon the optic
nerve. An lowa surgeon is said to have discovered
a cure by operating upon the vertebrae of the neck,
which has become displaced, at the conclusion of
which the patient was able to see within a short
ti me .—Medical Insurance and Health Conserva
tion.
QUIPS AND QUIDDITIES
Personal beauty came up for discussion at a
social gathering, when a little incident along that
line was recalled hy Senator William H. Thomp
son of Kansas.
One afternoon Smith and Jones were compar
ing war garden statistics over the backyard fence
when a new resident, who had recently moved
into the neighborhood, chanced to pass by at a
distance.
“There goes that man Brown,” remarked
Smith, wdth an indicative nod of his head toward
the stranger. “What do you think of him by this
time?”
“I don’t know,” replied Jones. “I haven’t had
the occasion to give him much thought.”
“I don’t know whether he appeals to me or !
not,” returned Smith. "Does he look to you like
a man who is two-faced?”
“Well, I should say not!" was the sympathetic
declaration of Jones. “If he was he wouldn’t
wear the one he does.”
An old lady who lived on the coast went down
to Portsmouth to visit her son. who was in bar
racks there. They were walking along one of the
streets in the evening when all of a sudden there
' was a loud bang.
“Good heavens!” she exclaimed! "What was i
that?”
“It’s all right, mater,” said the boy, "it’s only
sunset.”
“Sunset!” she ejaculated. “Well, I’ve lived by
the sea all my life and I’ve never heard the sun go
down with a bang like that before.”
CHILDREN AND THE WAR—I. INFANT MORTALITY—By Frederic J. Haskin
WASHINGTON, D. C., Aug. 9.—The wholesale
death of babies is the most sinister of
calamities following the wake of prolonged
war, because it is the ultimate result of all other
war evils and because it renders virtually impotent
all efforts toward reconstruction. The babies of
today are the nation of tomorrow—upon them will
fall the task of guiding it through the rock ridden
channels of the next generation. If the children of
the present age are made strong, virile and ade
quately equipped, the nation will pass safely
through the difficult course; if they are weak, un
dernourished and mentally underdeveloped, the
nation must look forward to decline and perhaps
to decay. '■
Realizing fully the seriousness of the situation,
the government is now devoting a tremendous
deal of attention to the work of saving the babies
of the United States. Through the children’s bu
reau of the department of laobr, and the women’s
committee of the council of national defense, it is
effecting a great organization for this purpose. It
has already enlisted more than eleven million
women and provided more than 12,790 local units.
In many instances the jurisdiction of these units
has been narrowed down to twenty-five families,
and when the organization is complete, each moth
er in America will be assured of expert instruction
in the care of her children.
Os necessity, a large part of the child welfare
campaign will be directed toward the large indus
trial centers of the country, where, owing to de
plorable housing conditions, lack of proper rec
reation areas and other causes, infant mortality
figures show signs of taking an alarming increase.
An illustration of this is given in a report by Miss
Estelle B. Hunter to the children's bureau, of an
investigation into conditions prevalent in Water
bury, Conn. Waterbury is typical of the eastern
city caught unawares by the overnight development
of gigantic war industries.
Causes of infant mortality in Waterbury, as de
tailed by Miss Hunter, are catholic enough to ad
mit of general application. The predominating
medical causes were gastric and intestinal dis
eases. and closely following (almost a third of all
cases reported), were congenital debility and pre
mature birth. The first causes imply improper
care of the infant, particularly in regard to feed
ing, and congenital debility indicates improper
care of the mother during the period before birth.
Such conditions are themselves the evolution of
other conditions, for example, poverty, faulty en
vironment, ignorance and neglect.
Os course, all infant deaths cannot be directly
traced to these conditions, but they were undoubt
edly a considerable factor in many of them. Gas
tric diseases and intestinal disorders are largely
preventable* and are usually the result of improper
feeding. In this connection might be mentioned
the problem of artificial feeding. The best authori
ties on this subject prescribe that, wherever pos
sible, babies should be fed from the breast, but
where weakness on the part of the mother or other
reasons prevent this, artificial feeding should be
administered with the greatest care. Many
mothers who are unable to buy a good grade of
cow’s milk, substitute condensed milk for their
babies. Infants fed on condensed milk often be
come fat, but as a rule they show feeble resistance
to the attacks of disease. Authorities say that
there are few children fed exclusively on condensed
milk who do not show evidence of rickets, and its
prolonged use sometimes results in scurvy.
Ignorance, and with it a fatalistic acceptance of
death, is another large contributor to the high
rate of infant mortality. Thia is particularly true
of foreign born mothers. Miss Hunter tells of one
mother of Waterbury’s Lithuanian colony who lost
five children —all of them fed from the start from
the bottle. For their deaths she gave the laconic
explanation "stomach trouble.” Another mother
informed the investigators that her six months old
baby had died of a severe cold. The death certifi
cate of this child showed “malnutrition and
bronchitis.”
About thirty-two per cent of all infant deaths
in Waterbury were due to conditions before birth
or to accident at birth. Just many of these
deaths might have been prevented, the children’s
bureau cannot estimate, but it believes that a
large proportion of them might have been averted
had proper care been taken of the mothers. Moth
ers should be educated in the care of themselves
during pregnancy, and throughout this state should
NOTHING IS COMMONPLACE—By H. Addington Bruce y
LETTERS received by me indicate unmistakably
that much misunderstanding still exists as
regards the scope and purposes of mental
hygiene.
Mental hygiene is not simply a matter of giving
intelligence tests to people, as some seem to think.
Intelligence tests are merely helpful aids in the gen
eral work of mental hygiene.
Nor is mental hygiene limited to the prevention
of mental and nervous diseases. That is but one
of its many special objects, albeit an object of the
utmost importance.
What mental hygiene essentially aims to do is
to establish in men and women healthy habits of
thinking—habits that will fit them for the proper
performance of their duties as members of society.
The insane and the nervously diseased obviously
suffer from unhealthy habits ot thinking. But so do
criminals, drunkards, drug addicts, vagabonds,
tramps, idle rich —in a word, all who are socially
incompetent.
If these habitually behave in away hurtful to
their own best interests and the interests of society,
it is because their habits of thought are unsound.
The business of mental hygiene is to substitute
sound habits of thinking.
Which means that mental hygiene is a business
not alone for highly trained medical and psychologi
cal experts, but for all who have in any way to do
with the formation of character —especially clergy
men and teachers, and, above all, parents.
As Dr. H. Douglas Singer recently pointed out in
an address to the American Medical association:
“Just as the rules of bodily hygiene are intended
THE SMILE IN YOUR VOICE—By Dr. Frank Crane
Get a smile in your voice.
' When you talk over the telephone.
When your wife tells you wffiat you ought to
have done and you try to explain why you didn’t.
When your little boy asks you for something
and you have to refuse.
When a confused woman with a scrambled mind
is buying at your counter and doesn’t know what
she wants.
When you’re selling ticketszat the railway win
dow and an irritating purchaser is asking forty
nine useless questions.
When you tell the waiter to hurry along with
the food, as you have an engagement.
When you call up the grocer and tell him that
come yet. and here it is about dinner time.
tho things you ordered two hours ago haven't
When you’re a policeman and tell an automo
bilist that he can’t park there but must go over to
the other side of tho street.
When you’re an usher in a theater and ask
somebody to rise so that some other people may
pass.
When you take your husband out into the next
room and ask him why he brought those men to
dinner without letting you know, so you could
have prepared for them.
When you inform that young man that while
you cannot live him as he asks, yet you will be a
sister to him.
When you tell Willie and the neighbor boys
not to rehearse the battle of the Somme on the
front porch.
When you tell the bore, “Don't go. Here is
your hat.”
When you’re busy and worried and somebody
asks you foolish question number ninety-six.
When you meet an old friend unexpectedly.
When the hired girl tells you she is sorry but
be under attention of skilled obstetricians and com
petent nurses. Such things, however, are beyond
the means of a great many women, nor does ex
treme poverty provides a suitable abundance and
variety of food. Economic stress often makes it
necessary for pregnant women to continue at em
ployment up until the very hour of labor, in this
way shutting themselves off from the care <*sjsen
tial ,to the bearing of healthy chilf-tn.
Conditions of this sort might be remedied to
some extent by the establishment of moderately
priced confinement services. Hundreds of infants
would be saved to a community in a year, and a ma
terial reduction w’ould be made in the enormous
amount of suffering which makes so many women
dread to face the task of maternity.
Essentially a manufacturing town, Waterbury
has for its chief industries the production of bronze
and brass manufactories. This, of course, has been
considerably extended by the war program, and
several new industries have been developed as a
result of the war. More than one-third of the fac
tory operatives supporting families were found bv
the investigators to be earning less than $450 a
year. This included the fathers of 2,197 infants.
\ ery often this scant sum had to be supplemented
by the earnings of the mother, who by unduly ex
erting herself during the critical, stages of preg
nancy and post maternity, brought harmful con
sequences on herself and her children.
The importance of sanitation to any sort of
health program is well known, but its relation to
the health of infants is much greater than to the
health of older children or adults. Baby saving
involves much more than the mere prevention of
death, if the babies are to be developed into intelli
gent and capable citizens. City laws should pro
vide that all urban dwellings be ‘equipped with
such sanitary necessities as running water, indoor
bathtubs and sewer connections. It is likewise the
duty of cities to provide for the education of ten
ants in matters of hygiene, inasmuch as the wisest
of laws can be rendered ineffective by ignorance or
disinterestedness on tae part of those for whose
benefit it is designed.
Railroad Hill is a long narrow section of Water
bury, running between the Naugatuck river and tho.
tracks of the New York, New Haven and Hartford X
railroad. The city sewer is laid along the hill for
about one-quarter of the length. The greater
number of houses on the hill were not connected
with the sewer, and waste pipes from the sinks
poured greasy water into the yards whence it ran
down hill into the swampy land about the river.
There were six basement dwellings in this district,
all of them made unfit for habitation by this con
dition. The rest of the houses in Railroad Hill
were of frame, small, old and in very poor repair.
In one of these houses, occupied bv a widen- fn»>r
small children, every step on the stairway was
broken. The roofs, floors and ceilings were sag
ging, covered with mildew, and threatening in
stant collapse. The door of a two-room hut in the
same neighborhood had been blown away and was
replaced by a curtain.
In a third floor apartment of one Waterbury
tenement building lived a nine-year-old bov in tn-,
incipient stages of tuberculosis, and a seventeen
year-old girl dying of bronchial asthma. In an
apartment adjoining, a baby had recently died of
consumption, and another member of the family
was in the advanced stages of the same disease. He
slept in a small bedroom with his wife In an
other bedroom of the same size were crowded the
rest of the family, a fatner, mother and two chil
dren. This room contained 880 cubic feet of air
space. In another section of Waterbury, known
as Wards Flats, 230 persons were crowded into
four small and dilapidated buildings. The walls
of these buildings were dark and filthy, the halls
dark and narrow, and the stairs generally broken.
The waste pipes ot this section drained into a river
which flowed along the siae.
Amid such conditions as these it is obviously
impossible for infants to attain their rightful sharo
of development. These evils are everywhere in
urgent need of correction and elimination. Yet
in most industrial cities the menacing conditions,
far from being bettered, are rapidly growing wo’>«.
England, France and Germany have at last awak
ened to the woeful mistake of neglecting this prob
lem. and are trying frantically to retrieve it. It
is the manifest duty of the United States to lend
every effort toward the reduction of the infant
mortality rate in this country.
to maintain bodily health, so mental hygiene at
tempts to' lay down principles which will permit
the individual to adapt himself, in a manner satis
factory to himself and to society, to social regula
tions. This means the control of personal longings
and desires, which are primeval and inherent in
life itself.
“Every one receives training in habits of ad
justment of one kind or another. This begins in
the home, whether that be a palace or the streets,
and is also by far the most important part of the
school curriculum.”
Dr. Singer added:
"It is strange, in the face of this, that more
attention has not been given to a study of the
methods followed, the results desired, and the
harmful consequences of poor technics.”
But, after all, it is not so strange, in view of
the prevalent misconception of mental hygiene and
still more of the widespread ignorance of parents
concerning the supreme importance of correct habit
training in early life.
For all of which specialist writers on mental
hygiene are themselves chiefly to blame. They have
erred, as other specialists in matters of practical
significance so frequently err, in addressing them
selves too much to fellow experts, too little to the
general public.
Yet mental hygiene can be worth while only
in proportion as its principles are made familiar to,
and applied by, the general public—and in particu
lar by those of the general public directly con
cerned in the upbringing of the young.
(Copyright, 1918, by the Associated Newspapers.)
the roast is burnt.
When the pup has gone off with your over
shoe, or your young son has made ink marks all
over an important paper on your desk, or you
can’t find your hat, although you are positive you
you have barely time now to get to the show if
hung it right there, or the missus is not ready and
you would see the first act, or you have to tell the
clerk the same thing the tenth time, or you have
done a fine act with the best of intentions and find
you’re in wrong and everybody blames you for it.
Smile when you say it, contwist you, smile!
You’d just as well. And don’t you forget the tele
phone.
(Copyright, 1918, by Frank Crane.)
Russian officials should always keep airplanes
handy for flights.
Fourteen hundred guns and 73,000 prisoners la
pretty good war profit for less than a month’s
operation.
Editorial Echoes
An old colored man stepped into the Indiana
National bank one day recently and presented a
check to be cashed. It was the window of the dis
count cage, and the clerk handed back the check.
“Take it to the opposite window,” he said, and
went on with his work. The old man examined the
check carefully, then he walked on About five
minutes later the clerk of the discount cage brad
the same check presented to him. “Hi, you,” the
colored man said. “You'll have to fix up this
piece of paper for me. I been 'round to all the
windows, and ain’t none of them marked ‘Oppo
site.’ ”
