South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1918-10-04
HoD War is Being Robbed of
Its Terors for Home Population,
By WOODS HUTCHINSON. NJ. d.

War has ever brought hunger and
thirst and pestilence at home as we'll
as death and wounds in the field.
But this war is mercifully different.
Frances home or civilian death
rate is only a shade higher than in
peace. while England's is actually
the lowest on record. Instead Of
there being a good deal of malnutri-
ton and diseases due 10 under-feed-
ing among children, the infant NOR
tally and child death rate after n
distinct rise during the first six
months of the war. began to decline
and is now at the lowest level ever
known.
Instead of there being unemploy-
ment, there is an actual excess of
jobs over applicants, wages have
risen, so the families were earning
more money than they ever had in
their lives before. and the one COM
plant that is uniformly voiced by
the middle classes is that the work
ing people were buying things they
had never dreamed OF possessing
before such as pianos, organs. plush
upholstered furniture, ostrich fea-
theirs. and even furs and jewelry.
More unexpected yet, after three
years of war vagrancy was almost
unknown, the poOr-houses were half
empty, drunkenness as indicated by
the number of arrests, had fallen off
from SO to 90 percent, and crime
had decreased in the most astOnish-
ing fashion. Even in spite of the fact
that a large proportion of the
younger and more active policemen
had gone TO the front, and that the
streets of all the cities were in
state of perpetual more than semi
darkness at night. Even though the
spokesman of the upper and middle
classes in England and France at
first were all firmly convinced that
The working classes were getting far
higher wages than they were worth,
and in the beginning Of the war had
loudly lamented that they would
surely spend the greater part of the
surplus on beer they are now ad
mittirg that their prophecies in this
regard had been largely unfounded,
and that most of the munition work
ers were putting their high wages
into more nourishing foods, better
houses. more attractive clothing,
war bonds, and savings banks.
When 1 had finished my stay in
England and crossed over TO France.
/ found an almost parallel situation
oF,. F@oN
and financial welfare OF the great
mass of the people. only in less de-
gree. This was, of course, TO have
been expected on all grounds, partly
because France was a much more
largely farming population, and
hence there had been an earlier and
more striking falling off Of and re-
striction in certain classes of food
supplies. while at the same time a
much smaller portion OF the popu-
lation were benefited BY the great
increase in wages Also because
heroic France had borne the full
brunt of the war right from the very
beginning. while it had taken Eng
land a year and a half TO put even
an approximately large proportion
of her population into the field. But
; nevertheless. the shops were all open
and their windows crammed with
goods. trade and traffic were good,
labor was scarce, wages more than
doubled. the people were we'll dress
ed and well fed, and that most SEN
sitive barometer OF national welfare
the children. were bright-eyed,
plump bodied. rosy checked, and
strenuous Of both voice and limb in
their happy play