Denver labor bulletin., 1918-11-02

The old soldiers home, Just the
sound of that name brings to ones
mind the great, many-roomed building,
which stood little way from town,
beautifully kept, with wide green
lawns and benches on which the old
men sat idle all day long. Some played
chess or checkers, and some sat
smoking and looking over old maga-
zines which charitable society had
sent. Occasionally one whitfield out
images of Lee or Grant, which he
sold for small sums to the visitors,
but this was an exceptional industry
At evening the bell would ring for
supper. From all parts of the building
they would come, with empty sleeves
or stumping wooden legs, some lead
ing the sightless, and would gather at
the long table for the meal You
could hear the steady click of the
knives and forks, and afterwards per-
haps a tale or two Of the war, and
then off to dream of days gone by
when they were men with world to
face, before they had given themselves,
their hopes of home, and work, and
success.
There, in idleness and inactivity of
hand and brain, their minds arrested
at the point where they should have
been only beginning to expand, they
passed their empty days in a stultify-
ing atmosphere of retrospect, lacking
an incentive to make something of
their existence, passively accepting the
fact of a lived life.
After that war of glorious sacri-
fice-soldiers' homes full of broken,
listless men. After this war-what?
Soldiers homes of the future will
be individual rather than institutional
affairs. Wounded men returning from
the front are met with the assurance
find themselves again. This in itself
is a "cheerup" welcome, stirring in
them just at most needed time the
desire to "come back" After the best
medical attention, these veterans leave
the hospitals and voluntarily begin to
prepare to take up life again, either
by means of new vocations suitable
to their disabilities or by becoming
thru study and training better
equipped to take up the old. Work
shops will be open to them for in
struction; colleges will have courses
for them in agriculture, mechanics,
engineering, clerical work; factories
will be glad of the chance to train
them. Everywhere the right of way
for the returned soldier! Instead of
old soldiers given jobs from a sense
of gratitude-men who will hold po-
sitions by force of their fitness. In
stead of disabled men whiting away
at useless things, men fitted with mod
ern prosthetic appliances will be real
parts of the active industrial life of
the Country; not only able to take up
life where they left it but even better
and more intelligently equipped to
meet its requirements.
The old soldier who puts down his
sword to sit idle all day long will be
an anachronism; the soldier now puts
down his sword to take up the plow-
share or tools. Instead of there being
one here or there, these homes will
be everywhere-in among the towns
themselves, so neighborly one hardly
knows difference. Take this one on
the farm, with its doors opening on a
fertile field, and small porch where
in the evenings the farmer can smoke
his pipe and watch the sun go down
over his alfalfa fields. Across the way,
friend of his is feeding his check
ems, and there is a sound of clucking
and sight of white feathers under
the trees. Perhaps you did not notice
that the left arm Of the farmer was
gone, or the fact that the eyes of the
poultryman over there looked out un-
seeing over his white flock. A little
way into the heart Of the town, a wom-