Newark leader. ([Newark, Ohio]) 1917-1946, 1920-11-19

spinning districts, for example, shows
almost another race of people COM
pared to the well-fed Englishnan we
know in London, race undersized,
underfed, underdeveloped and under
educated. Lloyd Georges famous at
terance that you could not build an
Al nation out of C-3 population has
sunk deep into the English mind. The
statistics of physique which the mill
tary annals produce shows that one
third of the male population of fight
ing age was unfit for military effort.
"The other great outstanding fact
indicating in British industry wage
scale insufficient for what is regarded
as a minimum standard of living, is
found in the great national housing
problem. The brutal truth is that
England's labor has been so under
paid during the last generation that
it has been unable to keep roof
over its head, and today there is ur-
gent need for homes for million
workingmen's families x"
"It is admitted on every hand that
the deterioration and crowding in
houses has gone to shocking point
has gone so far that nothing short Of
national aid can rescue English labor
from an intolerable position.
"In order successfully to compete
in neutral markets, British industry
has made a red ink overdraft on the
future, an overdraft on the physique
of her citizens, an overdraft that has
consumed her house facilities; that
overdraft must now be made good,
at the expense of the nation ="
Mr.. Vanderlip did not miss the point
of the sights which he saw in the in
dustrial centers of England. He dis
covered that when employers try to
buy labor as cheaply as possible, they
end by undermining the physical
strength of the community. The re-
suits of low wages are disease, weak
ness and the inevitable results, in
sanity and crime. No community can
afford policy which undermines its
physique.
But we ask Mr.. Vanderlip, is Eng
land the only country guilty of this
great blunder? The medical expert
who directs the conservation bureau
of the Equitable Life Assurance Com
pany proves that the United States
is guilty of the same mistake. For he
shows US in the United States results
similar to those which Mr.. Vande.'l lip
found in England.
He reports that 80 per cent Of the
men called in the late war draft were
unfit for service and that IS per cent
of the 100000 school children of
the United States hav physical de-
fects. These facts are sufficiently
striking to arrest the attention of
anyone interested in the general well
fare of the country. But there are
other facts which this authority re-
ports as showing deterioration in our
national physique. He points out that
crimes, traceable to disease, have been
costing the nation $600,00G,000 per
year; that care of the feeble minded
has been costing US $200,00O,000 per
year; that tuberculosis has been
costing $500,00O,00O, and thai typhoid
causes expenditures equal to $780,
100000 annually. Here, in addition
to the tragedy of physical i'll health,
we have an annual burden of expense
due to our bad physical condition
amounting to nearly $4.OO0,OO0,OO0
per year, or an average cos7 of about
$500 per family per year.
He also reports that workmen in
the United States lose an average Of
about nine days per year Que to sick
ness.
Present industrial conditions are
responsible for much of this. Studies
by experts have shown that there is
more sickness where hours are long.
or where work is done under high
pressure as in factories which have
been "speeded up" All experts agree
that rates of pay which do not make
adequate provisions for good housing,
for sufficient food, for adequate cloth
ing and for reasonable comforts, are
the cause of very large part of the
and defective physique of the
families who keep our mills running
and our freight moving. Such facts
as those presented by the director of
the conservation bureau of one of our
great life insurance companies should
cause US to work all the harder in our /
fight to gain a better standard of
living for our families and for the
other workers of the land. High |
wages are a national necessity.