Show Not But Charity a a Chance By H Kaufman CLOSE LOSE examination of your family tree will disclose a monkey sitting on the bottom branch Examine it again and you'll find a toed long-toed upstanding brute covered from head to foot with coarse springy hair Without tails our dim ancestors could not have swung t through rough the upper reaches of the primeval jungle and thus escape from sundry voracious horrors which infested the dawn Whets When beasts grew weaker and and great grandfather developed developed developed devel devel- brain talons his his progeny descended to terra firma and for lack of employment caudal appendages and long strong flexible toes disappeared from the species In brief we educated ourselves out of their use and nature always thrifty ceased to waste material where it wasn't essential As soon as man learned to build houses and wear pelts she removed him from the class of fur bearing animals we became smooth skinned skinned evolution evolution shaved us and simplified our physiques Evolution constantly says Exercise faculties and functions or them What limbs and instincts you dont don't require progeny shant shan't acquire Its It's my particular job to reshape you for the environment environment environment environ environ- ment you select At this particular moment for instance Im I'm at work eliminating your toes altogether As you avoid exertion and institute conveniences trains automobiles telephones automatic machinery and the like like like-I I shall correspondingly divert attention from legs and arms and devote myself to the improvement and extension of your nervous system Behold how your once stodgy fingers have thinned and tapered but consider how adept they are Your neck is 1 longer the jugular vein and throat are not in peril nowadays Formerly I 1 had to guard it for you by exposing the least possible area and by hiding vulnerable cords under tough layers of muscle and cartilage Ive pulled in your chin and removed ounces of bone from the jaw but your forehead is rising century by century and your whole head is roomier so that there may be ample space to add gray matter The foregoing may seem a far fetched introduction to the subject of blesses and their reconstruction but when one pauses to reflect that a tailless forebear was even more badly off and sadly handicapped in the prehistoric ages than a legless being is in this period of wheel chairs elevators typewriters adding machines and switchboards the preface is quite germane to the subject Few questions demand more insistent attention than this matter of maimed folk Europe is permanently injuring a million men annually but not disabling them with them with negligible exceptions these victims of battle can be restored to self support The staggering cost cast c st of maintaining such a multitude at state expense has forced society to consider ways sways and means of applying their remaining efficiencies to to suitable tasks We reject the Roman theory that a malformed is best destroyed destroyed destroyed de de- we repudiate the callous conviction of recent pasts that amputation cuts off opportunity we dissent from the cruel prejudice prejudice prejudice dice which hitherto sequestrated the blind and blinded in depressing asylums or orthe the communal un-economy un which sentenced them t the e beggars beggar's organ and tin tincup cup A All that is done ith with and with it must go unworthy primitive abhorrence and debasing pity Were We're going to put these people where they belong where t their sound energies and sturdy intelligence can be turned turned to o mutually mu mu- profitable account A missing foot is not a a d drawback for for a desk re responsibility One hand Ian or two play no part in m the exercise of superintendence I Imagination needs n nd eyes it has has' a thousand thousand there there are few are few heights prohibited to those who can find ideas in the dark T The e vital reconstruction is not for the surgeons surgeons they'll they'll do their bit never fear We Ve the stay-at-homes stay the sons and the brothers of scarred 3 and d marred men sacrificing their persons writhing writhing- in agony for pur our sakes sakes mangled mangled in defense of our and liberties liberties hold hold ing the gate against barbarism we barbarism we must be reconstructed too too too- must reconstruct our impulses must Impulses must lose the Rock attitude attitude atti atti- tude toward toward the crippled must crippled must led must learn to measure the worth of a fellow by his IlS enterprise and courage and enthusiasm and capacity and give him t the e preference at every post and in every engagement If if he can deliver the goods A A A civilization ci that won wont won't t do its duty by its defenders isn't worth fighting for prepare for prepare to prove that this one is They dont don't want your charity they charity they demand their chance Copyright 1918 by Herbert Kaufman Great Grut Britain and all other rights reserved |