The Green Forest tribune., 1918-03-08

In France I have heard an ironist say:
 Yes he was a hero for ten days and now he is a decorated ruin; cripple for life"
 Yet even "mutiles' can be patched up. They can be provided with ''jambe Americaine' and an arm fixed with all sorts of joints and springs that make it practical. Last week. in the train to Nh. I sat next to one such mended hero; he showed me his arm with real pride, and explained that for the present he had work in the municipal markets of Paris; but that he hoped to get trans ferred to something more esthetic; he would pre- fer to be sort of subcurator in picture gallery.
 "See, Monsieur, hold fork like this-or l can grasp glass; the thumb is exaggeratedy long, have to get special glove.
 Yes, the muties features can be nodded into something like human sembance, where it's the face that has suffered But that is hardly enough It is not enough to make the hero for days the cripple for a lifetime look like man. He must be restored to real living-to a part in the world of industry. That is for the sake of Belgium, or France, Britain, whatever his country may be; it is also for the mans sake.
 have just had talk with Miss Grace Harper chief of the bureau of the reedueation of mutiles at American Red Cross headquarters in Paris She has shown estimates that for every mil lion men placed in the field France counts on hay ing to care for 50,000 mutles-500O of them fl month. And this figure does not take account of the war-blinded and war-deafened and war-crazed
 "Please do rot quote these figures as our own" says the cautious chief. "They are the best esti- mates have been able to secure but they are estimates
 France is working miracles in making over maimed men," Miss Harper goes on, but even at the close of 1917 the work of reconstruction has not yet caught up with the destructive forces Un- der the French system the wounded soldier passes from a Post de Secours to a base hospital and thence to of the eleven existing Centres de Physiotherapie" At that center he receives sur g1cal treatment or physiotherapy, both, physio- therapy meaning electrical mechanical massage Here he receives also artificial limb and his industrial training is begun-to fit him for a new place in the social organism.
 1.-The French centers of physiotherapy are capa- ble of receiving less than 25 per cent of the mu- tiles. Happily the schools of re-educaton are able to take care of some of those mutiles who must perforce, forego the physiotherapeutics.
 T am talking to you in terms like these because the problem is such big one and because our own country too, must realize something of the problem all up against, and the support that must be given to the American Red Cross if we are either to be of much help to France or to ourselves in this business of making men out of wars wastage But want you to realize that the Red Cross did not come to France just to study
 T, for one have been in Paris since March 1917 and have visited practically every large center of reeducational work in France, and some of the small ones; not all by any means for nominally there 103 of them. The Red Cross continues to study the new developments the new demands in the field of re-educatiOn, for when the Ameri- army has its full share of casualties the Red Cross whose first task is to back up that army. must benefit by French and British experience But our real program for helping in France has now advanced beyond the stage of study.
 "A superficial examination of our field shows this: The training already provided in France is industrial training, or the preparation of dis charged soldiers for such jobs as stenography.