The Washington times., 1928-12-18

orange, IN. ~, 1--we young WOH
healthy, are doomed to die.
They are guilty OF nothing, but
their fate is more irrevocably fixed
than IL the nations highest court
had sentenced them.
Apparently healthy? Yes. But In
each OF them courses q minute bit
OF that most valuable. most mys-
terious, most deadly substance in
the world-radium!
"a year to live" the doctors said.
And that was six months ago. They
were given $4,000 each by the com
pany in whose service they had in
vited death. And now the world is
watching the enacted answer to that
hitherto academic question:
What would you do Il you were
given 4 fortune and year to lfve?"
Poisoned In War Work
The manner in which they have
chosen to spend their precious in
terim--an unmatched study in the
variety Of human character and
ideals--is reported for the first time
in an article appearing in the .Ianu-
ary issue of Cosmopolitan.
The five are Mrs. Quinta McDon-
aid and Mrs. Albina Larice, sisters;
Miss Katherine Schaub, Mrs. Edna
Hussman and Miss Grace Fryer. AS
girls in their teens, they worked
during the war in a New Jersey
factory. Their job was to paint
radiant dials on wrist watches for
the doughboys in France.
Whether or not they were In
zk, nA anf a. HYanfV1fD fhnfVs f{nV
brushes with their lips, has never
been satisfactorily settled. But the
fact is that they did touch the
brushes. bearing a radium compo-
sition. to their lips frequently dur
ing the day.
One Finds Poems Refuge
Examination convinced scientists
that the five New Jersey women
were doomed. Suits followed. which
were settled in June. 1928, for
$4,000 cash to each, with an add.
tional monthly remittance dur'hg
their lives
To them $4,000 was fortune.
What would they do before the
year of grace reached its tragic end?
How would they face that year OF
gically, k ssiy.
hopefully. dispassionately?
Katherine Schaub, youngest cf
the quintet, is realizing an ambl-
ton, repressed during the years of
necessary factory work. to read, TO
write poetry. The Cosmopolita
writer found her hidden away in a
farmhouse in the Catskills. sur
rounded by a new. but carefully
selected, library, drinking in the
rustic beauty she had never known
before, making herself loved among
her farm. neighbors.
Mrs. Edna Hussman had wanted
all her life two things. leisure and
music. She has her leisure, trag-
ically limited, and all of the music
she can crowd into it with a fine
player-piano in one corner of the
modest Hussman living room, an
expensive cabinet radio in the
other.
Money Adds to Tragedy
Mrs. Larice through her girl
hood had longed for and dreamed
of distant horizons and far places.
But always there had been the
necessity of work and never the
money to travel. He first expendi-
ture from the $4,000 was for a
comfortable car and a long, gypsy
like tour of Canada.
But to her sister, Mrs. Mcdonald,
the money only meant increased
tragedy. Immediately the check
arrived her husband quit his job
to enjoy the sudden affluence.
When she protested, there were
quarrels; finally a separation. Her
one concern now is for her two
small children. and for their edu-
cation the bulk of her money has
gone into a trust fund.
But the fifth and last fights back
at fate. No acceptance of science s
word for Grace Fryer. She holds
her job with a Newark trust com.
pany, her money invested as though
she were providing against a ripe
old age. Her outlook is unchanged.
If anything she is more interested
in life. and in rallying her four
friends. She is the irreconcilable
one, inteligently following every
effort of the experts who are striv-
ing frantically to stave off fate
But DR.. Harrison S. MARYLAND,
who has followed the cases from
their inception and led the search
for a solution, says:
For a time after the radium
salts reach the bone, the subject