The daily Nome industrial worker., 1917-09-28
FRUITS O. EXPLORATIONS.


 TEa eonseriptabl- age e. the United Statea. according To the draft law k th~ loves, .l tre world. II is ii every sense, good. bad and in- dtncrcut highly selactire.
 l. provides for the drafting ot men who are literally in that age when they are at the full and prime development Of their physical pow CTS.
 The older men get the surel will they show signs of physical de tarioratioH and for that rcasen it is very interesting and very signi- G.aat that notwithsatading the low aga fmt sci fer sclectiye draft in the United States tae number of rsf.a8ons should be so high.
 Moreover :. must be understood tlat inc physical tests were not strict. The te~rs which the drafted men underwent was by no means such as had Teen established for the recruited men in the regular army. In many Ways the bars were thrown down. as to eye sight as to teeth, as to general standard ot physique.
 Notwithstanding this the number who failed to pass the physical tests under medical examination is astonishing. The per cen'ase in some places made the authorities gasp. but as might have been eX. peoted in this inquisitive and ana iytie age, the facts are not given too much publicity.
 The rejccti0ns varied differently from 20 to 6G per cent in different centers and even in the healtiest apparently spots the rejections were high.
 A letter published in the New York Times in the shape of an ar ticle on the drafting of married men told how things were done in New York:
 "In the better resident districts. where the average of physical rt- ness is high, the medical examiners rejected men, who in any detail failed to meet the doubtless too rigorous requirements of the ragu- laUons for the regular army. II other districts there was no pretense Of putting candidates though the complicated exam.ua;on 1.-s' -ibed I live in a quarter which is half middle class and hal. slnm, ta the standard Of physique is prob ably rather low; the cXoTilira physicians accordingly swept every man who looked reasonably fit.
 Although We nave heard < Good deal more about exemption and exemption claims than this question of the physical tests, the physical tests contained within the facts gathered therefrom one of the most startling lessons in American in dustrial life.
 Now almost everyone knows that the health and the physique varies generally as the hnantia. standard of the community. The vel to do man is usually quite vigorous or il not has at least a quite vigorous family. The poverty stricken man suffers from mal-nutrition and his family develops all the ",in of ills directly traceablc to such cause.
 in the cities thlS facts are mo- ticeable in an intensified form. The poverty leads to ccnCested condl' tions in slums and tenement with most disastrous consequences tc the general health Of that section of the community. These reje2tioas then. judging by the mcthcdS oi the medical examiners, as reporteA in the New York Times, aIe even more significant than the figures in per centage would roughly indicate The examiners adjusted themselves so to say to the health of the dis tricts, being lenient where low phy- sical standards were common and strict where they were high.
 Now all of these things can he directly traced to just one thing; Labor exploitation And the health of the community varied as the in- tensity of the exploitation.
 II is a high price to pay for eff