Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1906-06-22

Doctors Diagnosis subjected 60
Analysis.
wall Street journal.

"NA oNNftN aNNANHAs
What Is man worth? The first answer
is, Of course. that It depends on the man.
An insurance company formed to take
risk upon the life OF one man only could
not sfrord to use the acuarys table OF
averages. At best the transaction would
be in the nature Of a bet But insuring
many lives the company could. and does.
do sound business on their average value
expressed in years. because over great
number Of cases results are constant.
Or. Holt Oack OF space prohibits his five
other namesl has been expressing In dollars
and cents what he estimates to he the
value of man, and. as the information
was given to the American Medical asso-
citation at Boston. the doctor is worth
taking seriously Plain man, without trim
mlngs. he estimates at S5,4sS when he IL
g. taking that as his maximum. and find
ing steady decrease until he becomes
worthless after 70 and a loss to the COM
munity from that on. The calculation must
be based upon prospective working capac-
ity because he finds the value OF a boy
OF IS about half that Of a man OF Is. This
is certainly not true Of the boys work in
any manual employment. 30 that the doc
tor puts some water in the capitalization.
The calculations have an interest in con-
ton abuses recently passed by congress
That bill exscts higher standard from
new citizens It requires a knowledge Of
the English language, which was not inn
perative before 1t gives some possibility
OF withdrawing naturalization papers
fraudulently obtained, and II also puts the
expense OF naturallzlng on the applicant
who pays 81 for the privilege he obtains
1t lie imperative that we should keep our
citizenship as clean as possible. 1t il too
great a privilege to be trined with Citizen
ship carries duties as we'll as privileges
and we are in manner bound to see that
the ability to discharge those duties exists
At the same time. between DIR. Hollis esti-
mate of the cash value Of a man and an
entirely comprehensive idea to make i'm
migra ton difficult we can trace a lesson
and a warning. II is not too much TO
say, economically, that any nation receiv-
ing new citizens would be justified in pay
ing cash price for any ablebodied man,
any child in good health and any woman
not past the child bearing age.
It Is impossible to enter into DR. Hollis
theory Of the value OF what he calls a
professional man" at any age Profess
sor" covers anything nowadays from peds-
gogy to prize fighting The strict English
profession, the church and the bar. Pooh
Bah, in 1.-THE Mikado," on the other hand,
drew the line at stock brokers. 1t is safe
enough to lump them all together and let
them average themselves like the actuarys
life table. We have workmen who can
make a good deal more money In a week
than plenty Of professional men, and the
efforts OF some Of our professional men
for the public good are OF doubtful value.
What our agricultural districts are say
ing north, south and west IL that we want
men. We ought to know their cash value
better than any other nation. We need
them and use them in our business. What
ever they may have been before they came
here we can make men OF them in
broader sense than many OF them con-
templated. Let US by all means regulate
immigration and citizenship, but let us
also remember not to put the bars up too
high.