Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1918-04-19

Aie you using II Tor the SOOQ OF
yourself or your country, or are you
frittering it away wastefully?
The Philadelphia North American
recommends that part of the hou",
st least, be devoted to physical exer-
cises that will fit the body for the
grueling tasks the war has brought
to most of us, and quotes Walter
Camp, the famous trainer, as fol-
lows:
Examination of our national
physical condition has brought to
the surface many unpleasant
tacts. The revelations of the draft
have been most disquieting. In
some districts only one man out
of five proved fit to enter mill
tary service-a shocking comment
ary on the national health, or lack
of it.
We have been found defective
in physical organs or fabby in
general condition, and our ma
tional health has sunk to prob
ably its lowest level in the his
tory of this new and potentially
vigorous nation. Our business
and professional men are old at
80, fat at 40 and at so refusing to
walk mile and insisting on rid
ing in motors or trolleys. Our
average factory man is anemic,
thin, hollow chested, poorly
muscled and full of physical de-
fects.
All this the war has pointed out
to us, presenting the lesson
clearly and plainly. and now we
are face to face with the ques
tion: What are we going to do
about it?
Shall we at once undertake the
task of making the whole nation
fit, or shall we-when finally we
have stemmed the great peril of
the Hun-heave a sigh, and with
in a decade grow fat and flabby
again?
Our athletes and trainers have
failed to give us anything perma-
nent in condition or fitness. They
have struggled to build up sys-
TENS, but in each instance these
have not proved attractive and
have not been followed by those
who studied them. Such systems,
as a rule, have required large
amount of time and have proved
unnteresting, despite their high
aim.
In the midst of these revelations
of ursound physiques. we are
given an extra hour of daylight.
And surely no better use can be
made of some part of this added
time than TO apply it to improve
ment of the national health.
1t ought to require no urging by
the especially created committee OF
the National Security League to pro-
mote this use of fifteen minutes a
day, but unless some means of eXer-
else other than those usually en-
ployed by busy men is devised the
quarter-hour is likely to slip by with
out the bodily discipline recommend
ed. But for the man who loves the
outdoors and who will take up war
or golf, or rowing, or
canoeing, or tennis, or any one OF
the dozens of forms of healthful
exercises that present of themselves
an inducement to muscular effort,
there is hope. Indeed, the growth
of golf and tennis, the popularity of
the long hike, the increasing use of
the canoe, the renewed interest in
fishing, particularly in the casting
and fly branches of the sport, indicate
nothing more than that men are
coming to understand that 100 per
cent. efficiency cannot be maintained
solely by concentration at the desk,
but that healthy exercise in the open
air is an essential. 1t is likely that
the slowly falling interest in Big
League baseball, while the amateur
branch of the sport is growing, is in
part at least the result of this de-
sire of men to participate in sport in
dividually instead of sitting on the
sidelines watching few others hav-
ing all the fun.
At all events, the man who is civ
ing at least fifteen minutes "a day to
proper exercise is investing his new
ly-acquired span of additional day.
light, and will draw his interest in
improved health later, while the
other fellow is simply spending it and
getting nothing for his expenditure
Fellow employees of an unpatriotic
nfolder in a foundry in New York
who said the United States Army was
going to France only to play ball
made him kneel in the center of one
Of the plants big molding rooms and
kiss the American flag three times
Their foreman persuaded them to de-
sist from marching to a neighboring
plant for the purpose of giving a
chap who stated the Kaiser would
rule the world in three years a coat
of tar and feathers. These incidents
illustrate the rising wave of patriot
ism in this country. There have been
happenings right here in Harrisburg
which show that patience has ceased
to be a virtue among industrial work
ers. The American workingman has
much at stake in this war, and he is
determined to back the boys at the
front by his labor and his earnings.
Major-General George w. Goethals
builder of the Panama Canal and or
ganizer extraordinary. is too big to be
acting quartermaster So he is given
the more important job of getting
troops and supplies to France. 1t is
stated with show of authority that
already the speed with which troops
are being dispatched abroad is five
times as great as the average main.
tanned during the first ten months
the United States was at war with
the German Government. The u. S
A boys are getting thicker anc