The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1918-09-14

industrial unit-perhaps a better chance than he
has ever had before.
One of the most important means of Installing
this vitality important lesson will be through the
utilization of "cheer-up men," themselves Grip
pies, who have. lost arms, legs or sight, and who
have, nevertheless, made good. Plans are COM
plete for the employment of a large corps of
these "cheer-up workers - they are being en-
listed through the aid of the Red Cross institute,
the National Association of Manufacturers, in
surance companies dealing with industrial acct
dents, and from the ranks of Canadian and Brit
ish soldiers who have suffered mutilation in this
war and are again self-supporting civilians.
Eventually, unless the war comes to n much
earlier termination than Washington is figuring
on, our own army will provide a supply of cheer
up men" from the graduates of the reconstruction
hospitals. These workers are to be attached to
the base hospitals, the hospital ships that will
bring the incapacitated soldiers back to America
for treatment, and to the general and special
hospitals on this side.
Supplementing the work of the "cheer-up men,
whose function is to demonstrate both orally and
usually that a cripple is far from useless, will be
books, pictures, motion pictures, and other ex-
hibits calculated to inspire the will and stimulate
the ambition of the injured man. In the surgeon
generals office a wonderful book is being COM
piled, under the direction of one of the most
famous of American surgeons, in which the life
stories of hundreds of MANNED and crippled men
who have overcome their handicaps are told in
simple but convincing fashion. Profusely illus
trated, copies of this book will be available for
the perusal of every crippled soldier in the hos
pitfalls. Motion-picture films showing crippled men
who have undergone almost every conceivable
form of mutilation, performing useful work for
good pay. with and without the use Of artificial
members, are being prepared by the Red Cross
institute and elsewhere for exhibition to the
manned soldier as early as he is able to see them.
To insure against the habit of idleness, provi-
sion Is being made for the employment of every
crippled soldier at some form of work as soon
MS he is able to use any of his faculties. Special
nurses, male and female, are being trained as
bedside teachers to give the wounded man a
start at employing his faculties before he is able
to leave his cot. The things he does at first will
necessarily be trivial In their results, but they
will he required duties, gagged to the mans ea-
pacity and strength, and leading to his future
career as a crippled civilian. Thus, the man who
has lost his right hand will be taught to use his
left for the things he was accustomed to do with
his right; the stenographer who has lost a hand
will learn to operate a typewriter with one hand
nor so difficult a feat as it may seem. AS the
cripple becomes a convalescent able to leave his
bed, more work will be required of him. BY this
time he will be on the hospital ship, ON his way
back to the United States, for every wounded
soldier who cannot be quickly restored to active
service will be sent back to this country as soon
as he can be transported. for further treatment or