New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-07-22

away gets the range from an aeroplane
and arops she'll among these trenc1'
men, killing half of them. "A cannon,
as the Chinese Minister at Brussels
grave!y informed his colleagues, just
before the German invasion, "has nc
eyes" The young genius is just as
/ likely TO be killed as the dolt-no more
no less. There is no natural selec-
ton" at the front nowadays. Or, =
/ there is, il works the wrong way.
/ take it for granted that, an general
wav, the bravest are the best. physl-
/ cally and spiritually. Now, in this war
/ OF machinery. this meat mill, it Is the
bravest who lead the charges and at
tempt the daring feats, and, CORE
/ spondingly. the loss is greatest among
/ those bravest
/ So much when the army gets to the
i line, but in the corscrlpt countries,
like France and Gemeny, there is a
process Of selection IN picking the
army by which the best-speaking IN
general terms-go ont to die, while
the weakest remain. The underSlzedi,
the undermusced, the underbralned,
the men twisted by hereditary de-
formity or devitalized by hereditary
disease-tney remain at home TO brop-
agate the breed The rest, all the
rest, 60 out to take chances.
There is still another hideous fact
in this accumulation of hideous facts.
As modern conscript armies are or
canized. it is the youngest men VINO
sustain the heaves; loss-the men
who are not yet fathers. And from
the point of view of the race, that
is, perhaps, the most melancholy TACT
of all.
All the able-bodied men of France
between the ages of nineteen and
forty-five are in the ranks. But IN
neither the French army nor the Ger
man do the older men take many
chances with death. The fighting age,
as E, a British officer, once said
to me, is the athletic age. A. about
that early period of life when the
sprinter firds that he can no longer
do ten seconds, when the baseball
plaver goes back TO the minors, when
the champion pugillst discovers that
youth will be served, I man begins TO
deteriorate as a soldier. lie has no
longer that last ounce OF phyS'cal
force for a supreme effort; his Physi-
cal flaws begin to tel under bard
ship; finally, he loses the reckless
courage Of youth. This is well under
stood by all military authorities.
These European couscrpt armies are
arranged in classes according to age,
and the younger classes are the men
who do most of the actual fighting.
The men in their late Ihirties Or their
forties, the "territorlals," guard the
lines, garrison the towns, generally
attend to tie business of running up
the supplies. When we come 20 gath
or tho statistics of this war we shall
find that an overwhelming majority
Of the dead were less than fh'rty
years old, and probablY that the ma
iority were under twenty-five. Now,
the territorial of forty or fortY-hye
has usually given 20 the state as
MANY children as he Is going TO give,
while the man Of twenty-five or un-
der has usually given the state no
children az all. II Il brutal TACT
that it would be better for the future
of any race if the process were re-
versed, if the men more than forty
years old had TO endure the process
of mortality and tie men OF twenty
were spared.
The French are not publishing their
losses, and estimates vary. | am pretty
sure. though, lNdL since the wal DtBaH
France has lost half million men,
killed or so badly mutilated that they
may be counted out of the history Of
the race. The slightly wounded, or
even such Of the heavily wounded as
can be made whole again, are another
matter. This war, unfortunately, Is
going on. The best informed see no end
10 il for long, long time-certainly
not before next winter and probably
not until far into 1916. Let II continue
through next winter, and. what with
the open lighting months to come.
France must lose, at lowest estimate, as
many more, or a million in all.
4 Million Aristocrats Lost.
Now, this million, as | have tried TO
show. constitutes the real sristOcracy
Of France on the male side They were
lust coming into the flower Of their
usefulness both to their generation and
20 the coming race. a famous horse
trainer said once: Give US the human
race to breed as we breed horses. and
We would give you supermen in cen,