The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1902-02-03
, 90. dated this third day of February
LONGEVITY
The Gain is in the Years of Greatest
Isefulness-Comparison of Ameri-
cans With other Nationalities.

There is hardly a week that we do
not see in some journal or newspaper
an allusion to the high pressure of
American life. 1t is taken for granted
that the only pace that kills is our
own that we are shortening our lives
and bringing on early death by the
strain. In recent number of the
Nineteenth Century and After, for in
stance, writer, plainly one of these
selt-destroytng Americans, writes as
follows:
The average American in every
| branch of business wears out his phv-
steal powers before his time: and only
/ TOO often, under the self-imposed
strain, his mental powers break down
also; but the high pressure at which
he works i'm the maturity of his
strength, intellectual and physical,
nUNe,er bad for himself in the end. is
very good for the community in which
he lives. Thousands and tens and
hundreds Of thousands fall i'm their
tracks, like soldiers in the fire and
smoke of battle, victims of their own
oNerstimulated energies; but their
places are promptly taken by younger
men, animated by the same indefatig-
able and unfaltering spirit. The COM
munity is practically made up of men
working at a white heat, and it's pro-
Eress is FASTENED by the very fact that
p
1t dies out in the average individual it
Injuries, if it does not destroy him.
we have often been minded to deny
the allegation, but upon second thought
have not done so because of the great
difficulty that exists in getting at
scientific dispTOOf. 1t is a huge task to
collate and analyze the statistics nee
essary to make the correction of the
error anything more than the error it
self-mere assertion without basic
facts. We are as little inclined as an
other to justify Overstrain and feverish
commercialism, but we believe that
these are unwise, chiefly because of
other reasons than those pertaining to
vital statistics. The fallacy of the
scOtfer at American high pressure lies
doubtless in the fact that every one
has the virtues of his defects, that is,
that we have other qualities which
more than compensate in a life-length-
ening way for the waste or shortening
Of our strain. The insurance statsti-
clan, Frederick l.. Hoffman, makes
statement which if true in all it's de-
tails should be laid before the echoers
of the old charge against the fast-liv-
ing American:
1t is then a matter of great impor-
lance to note that there has been a
material increase in the number of
those who survive to the ages of 30 40
and 90 in the United States, anad the
number will probably continue to grow,
az the conditions of city life are i'm
proved. At present in Massachusetts
there are expected to survive to the
age Of O5275 persons out of every TO-
600 born, against 4409 survivors out of
the same number in 1855. At the age
of. so the number of survivors is 1866
present, against 1859 half a century
ago. Therefore, most valuable lives,
valuable because the enhanced intelli-
90 I,an cfn
saved to the state because of the sani-
tary and other social progress made
during the last so years. This country
is more healthy, with the exception Of
Norway and Sweden than any part of
Europe and the effect of the intense
struggle for success on the part of our
siness men and women is more than
balanced by our higher standards of
living, which tend to make our people
continue along the path of improve
ment. While it is impossible to arrive
at final cOnCluSIrwS 0n the n"e's. uC '.i' .
industrial or ordinary experience, be- (
&C. OBJ. Il -" r't. o. nvuu.a' -"lecu"n I
exercised in insurance practice the
facts established by other investiga-
tiOns indicate that the adult foreign
born citizen IS subject to a lower NOR
tality in the United States than in his /
own country, and it may be safely as I
sumed that any inherited tendency to
by the healthier conditions of life in /
our country. A comparative mortality !
table shows that close behind Norway, /
and ahead of Great Britain, France,
Germany, and ahead of other states of |
eur country, New Jersey, has the low
est death rate. The chance of attain |
ing the age of 100 in Massac husetts is /
today 10 times what it was half a CEN
fury ago.
Certainly the facts are abundant
tending to prove that old age is being
attained by men and women in this
country with an increasing degree of
and, what is better, to quote
The words Of an authority 1T is GER
tain that our American men at 60 are
cot broken up as badly as our fathers
were at O."-Springfield Republican.