Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-07-16
SAD STATE OF
THE WOUNDED
They Are an Incubus on the Army,
Which Must Devote Itself to De-
struction Instead of to Succor.
Private Help Needed,
By ARNoLD BENNETT
Through the Courtesy Of the wounded Allio. r

|
i wars Is to lacerate huhan flesh, to breal
bones, to infiict torture to paralyze and Z
KILL Every army in the field today is ou
for manning and homicide, and for nothinl
else. Certainly armies make prisoners, bu
not because they want to do so; rather be
cause they are afraid 10 carry out logically
their principles. Every explosive weapon
from the 42-centlmeter gun to the servict
revolver, is designed, made, charged anC
fired with the definite and clear intention oi
| either doing men to death or lnhictlng upon
them the severest possible disabement
which must nearly always be accompanied
by intense physical pain, and which very
often involves lifelong misery and woe Guns
| are aimed against buildings only for the
reason that they serve directly or indirectly
to protect mon from murder and disable
ment and the purpose Of destroying build
ings is to deprive men of some kind OF de-
fense and thus expose them to destruction,
torture and paralysis, This is war.
Visualizing the War
We see on a poster, Ten Thousand Cas-
ualties." But we forbear from letting the
words raise an image in our minds. our
conception of the affair implied by those
three words is a mathematical conception
more than anything else We do not see
1000 prisoners led away in despair, nor 1000
decaying corpses lying in strange, contorted
attitudes on the ground, nor 5000 tortured,
bleeding men, whose torn and pierced bodies
have In few moments exuded hogsheads Of
blood You protest that 1 ought not to use
such a phrase as "hogsheads of blood"-it
sickens you. And why should you not be
sickened? Those hogsheads of blood. lacer-
ated limbs. smashed bones, glazing eyes,
. ,AI,. L.,
every country asked for when we voted sup
plies. A battery which could not point
proudly to such results might as we'll spike
its guns In shame. do not say we weren't
right emphatically say we were right.
But also say that we ought at least to have
the pluck to realize what we asked for. The
Kaiser, it is said, cannot bear to look on
blood. Naturally! But 1t is a pity. 1t Is a
tremendous pity that those who cause war
seldom what the thing is that they have
caused. 1t Is n tremendous pity that we
cannot all Of us see on the cinema the fall
of a shell into a trench crowded with men
and the convulsions of the wounded in the
open field. What men can suffer we ought
surely to have the strength to witness!
Could we bring ourselves to do So could
diplomatists, overlords and hnanciers be COM
PEELED to do So there would be an end to
war and of bellcose ideals even in Prussia
War only persists because people do not
realize what it is People object to realizing
what 1t is, and their delicate sensibilities are
carefully respected by practically all news
paper correspondents and writer's of private
letters home.
How the Man Feels
What about the treatment of the wounded?
In considering this we must bear in mind
both the psychology OF the wounded them
selves and the psychology of the army In
general, The wounded man has suffered a
horrible and tragic disappointment, for he,
like every soldier, hoped to escape damage;
very probably this hope amounted to a be-
lief He knows that he has done his duty |
and the mere fact that he is wounded proves
that he has affronted risks But he knows
also that he is useless for the time being, II
not for life. He knows that he is only in
the way dead weight, a source of possible |
danger, a drag on the operations. Further,
his mind is perhaps perturbed by sudden
anxleties about his family. Lastly, he is in |
great pain, he is acutely enfeebled and he is
helpless. If ever a human being needed
comfort, special attention and the full aid of
medical science apparatus and highly skilled |
nursing-f ever human being needed to
feel that he was the centre and chief object
OF all activities in his neighborhood-the |
wounded man is that human being
But on the other hand, the army like the |
wounded man, knows that the wounded man |
Is useless and a dead weight The army |
cannot help wishing that 1t might be freed |
Of the immense incubus of its wounded And |
It is well aware that where the interests of
the wounded clash with military interests,
military interests must prevail and the
must be sacrificed. The devotion of |
Red Cross workers and of comrades is
superb. All is done that in the circum-
stances can be done, but the circumstances
are nearly invariably against the wounded,
the general psychology is against them and
the imperous practical necessities Of the sit
lation are against them.
Nobody deserves suceor as wounded man
deserves 1t. His need is a thousand times
greater than that of the average person for
whose benefit the National Relief Fund was
established Ministries of War cannot do all
they would wish for the wounded. The de-
gotion Of Red Cross workers. though abso-
lutte and marvellous. is unequal to the tre-
nendous circumstances. The necessity of
private enterprise, especially I'm the allied
armies and in all the allied armies, is so
clear. so heartrending. so compelling that
,harity was bound. as It were, to leap from
he pocket and organize ITSELF and It has
lone so.
LIFE IN FoRDVILLE
Froun the Detroit Frea Preaa