New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-06-11
To the Editor Of The Tribune.

/ Leu
To the Editor Of The Tribune.
Sir: The United States has its third large
opportunity of the war. Once again 1t car
step in and serve a nations need. IL can bic
in saving the crippled soldiers Of France
was present yesterday at the historic inter
view between Justin Godart, member oil
the French Cabinet and Under Secretary
for the Sanitary Department, and b. ). Shon
niger, long representative of the American
Chamber of Commerce, now head OF the
American relief work for victims Of the var
when the Mason Blanche was offered by inc
French Government to the people OF the
cnited States.
Twice before in this war we have inter
vened in a largo wey. The American Ambu
lance Hospital at Neuily-sur-Seine, with 1T
admirable medico-surgical equipment and its
| famous field ambulance service, has laborec
greatly and successfully to lessen the suffer
ing of a nation. The American Committee
/ for Relief in Belgium has, through the tact
and executive genius Of its management, kept
an invaded country just above the starvation
line. These two pieces of American directive
ability have passed securely into history as
examples Of lfesaving in dark hour.
The Mason Blanche.
/ Now come third supreme need and third
Thrilling opportunity. Clearing house of he
suffering cf France, the Mason Blanche viii
let us stand side by side with the sister re
public and touch each of the returning
manned soldiers with hope To this one place
come the mutilated of the Grand Army. A
quickly as they are discharged from hosrita
they are sent TO this Mason Blanche, while
completing their convalescence, before they
return to their homes. 1t Is here that arms
legs, stumps, hands and the apparatus that
operates these members are fitted 20 them
They try out the new device. 1t Is 70 them
like foot asleep to a whole man; a some
thing numb and strange, out beyond the re-
sponses of the nervous system. 1t behaves
queerly 1t requires much testing to max, II
articulatc naturally.
Through the recreation hall, where plsys
and motion pictures have made gay evenings
in time past before the war, file the slow
streams Of the crippled, backwash Of tbs
slaughter in the North. To the soldiers it is
matter Of routine, one more item in the
long sacrifice. They fit on the member and
test It in businesslike way, with no seati-
mentalzing Too many are there in the room
and other hundreds on the pleasant sunny
lawns In like case, for the individual to feel
himself the lonely victim. There are nc
jests-the war has gone too far for super
fetal gayety-and there Is no hint Of despair
for France is being saved. The crippled man
I is sober and long-enduring.
The Reality Of War.
There in that room l saw tho war as
have not seen il in five months Of active
service at the front. For yonder on the
User we had the dramatic reliefs of sudden
bombardment and flashing aeroplanes. But
here were only broken men. There were no
whole men at all in the long Sale The
| spirit of these men was all that 1t ever was.
But the body could no longer respond They
stood in a long line, stripped to the waist
or with legs bare, waiting their turn with the
doctor and the apparatus expert. There is
tho look of an sutomaton to an artificial
| limb, as if the men in their troubled mo-
lions were marionettes. And then. the
imagination, abnormally stimulated by 80
much suffering, plays other tricks. And 1t
seemed as if one were looking in at the
window of one Of those shameful Halls
of Anatomy" in city slum, where life size
/ figures lie exposed with grotesque wounds
on the wax flesh.
| But here was the crackle Of the leather
straps and the swapping of the spring at the
knees-and elbow-joint of the mechanism
and the slow moving up and filing past OF
the line. as man after man was tested for
fexibiity. Here is the army Of France
here is the whole vast problem flowing
through one door and gathered in one room.
We can stem the misery at its source. We
can be to France what she was once TO US.
/ The Maison Blanche lies in sunny coun-
try spot in the village of Neutrality-suspicious.
in the green fields eight miles from Paris,
place of twenty acres and twenty-one sani-
tary buildings. The French government will
feed and house the men and keep them under
military control; so all cost of maintenance
and all details of discipline are removed
from the reckoning. There remains the SUI
premely important work of educating them
back into the world of workers.
The expenses are those of teachers, in
stallation of apparatus for the trades, pay
ment to the worker for what he makes, and
raw material for the trades. This brief
period when the discharged soldiers are be-
coming used to their new limbs is crucial.
Just out of hospital, discharged from war
service they eager to return to their
homes and take hold of life, TO DO some
thing. If nothing is done for them, no train
ing offered, no job open, they fall into an
aimless, drifting life. where the old thrifty
industrious habits are forgotten and new
manner of life formed, with inertia and lazi-
ness developing, and drink and despair and
even suicide as the occasional solution, be-
cause idleness is destructive.
A Typical Case.
When we left the hall of the crippled we
entered the open air corridor, where group
of thirty men rose to salute our party. My
eye picked up young man whose face car
red an expression of gentleness.
go, and bring the War Minister your
work." said the major who was conduct
I frc ng