The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-01-31
A VIGOROUS LoNa-LIvHD RACE.
Hurry Docs Not Seem to Interfere with the Evolution of . Mighty
 People.

Boston Journal
 It is hard to reconcile the familiar lamentation over the rush" and ''ex- citement" of American life with the cold, exact fact of the statisticians that the past fifteen years have witnessed an as tonishing reduction In the death rate of American cities.
 Either this rush and excitement have been very much exaggerated or else the people have learned to withstand it. Take New York, for instance, the supposed head-centre of hurry. Its death rate has fallen from 2s.N per thousand in 1887 to I90S in ,so2. In Philadelphia the decrease has been from 22.04 to T.67-whtch may be described as not at all surprising in a city accounted so slow But rapid Chi cago shows falling off In the death rate from 20.A to 1s.3S, while Boston comes down from its ominously high figure of 4s7 to 1S.7o. St. IIouis Washington. New Orleans. Pittsburg Louisville, Savannah. Cincinnati, all show the same improve ment There has been an increase In the death rate in only Baltimore and San Francisco. ard there the change is very slight.
 Of course this steady rovement-this iengthening life-is due largely to what may be described as modern sanitation to a better knowledge of the importance
 of a pure water supply. a thorough sew craze system, cleanliness of streets and cleanliness of homes. Some of the gain
 is doubtless due also to the increased and widely >diffused prosperity.
 Rut not even better water and better
 sewers could save a people whose ner-
 vous energy was dying out under an ex-
 cess of pressure. The American race Is a
 hardworking race: that is undeniabie.
 But this sharply lessened death rate of the cities. where the tension is severest,
 shows that the race is successfully adapt ing itself 10 its environment 1t is learn ing to work hard and yet to live long. It Is growing ronder of out-of-doors-and it was always tonder of out-of-doors thau some nasty and myopic critics imagine It is giving much, and yet not ton much. thought to a vigorous athleticism. There is altogether too much talk about the nervous and "excitable'' American temperament. Tho truth is that the dom- inant characteristic of those Americans who do the hard work of the world Is an unfailing coolness, an iron imperturba- bility. And these mental and moral traits are matched in our men of action by . superp physique. It was discovered in 1898 that the volunteers of the Spanish war were . great deal taller and larger and, presumably. stronger men than their fathers of the civil war of 1ssl-1S60. Ana | 1t was significant that when the armies of all the great nations came together in the far East in the Pekin relief cam paign, the critical Judgment on which ali
 observers agreed was the sheer physical superiority of the exceedingly business like American soldiers.
 Foreign onlookers did not like their matter-of-fact uniforms or their lack of the small amenities of discipline. But they did acknowledge that in size and general adaptability these Yankee regu- lars, who were not really picked men at all, but mere fair examples of our regi- ments of the line, were the finest fighting men in Christendom. ..