Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 86.djvu/329

Rh from Balkan battle fields that desperate bayonet charges figured in the strife, many were incredulous and ascribed such reports to the violent imagination of newspaper correspondents remote from the field.

But there is abundant evidence that a country at war must, in the final test, rely for success upon the marching, shooting, bayonet-thrusting, trench-digging, misery-enduring qualities of the common soldier, of that primitive war engine that dates from the cave-dweller and beyond.

Some eminent and patriotic gentlemen have lately formed a National Security League, for the purpose of testing the preparedness of this country for war—preparedness, according to them, connoting armaments, ships guns, ammunition and a trained "citizen soldiery. The physical sufficiency of our citizens for war seems to be taken for granted—all they need is training. In fact, as a feature of preparedness, it has been suggested that the physical standard for the acceptance of recruits be lowered.

But when the test of battle comes, when the vital organs of the bodies of our soldiers are put under a tremendous strain, what then? Preparedness will then mean something in addition to guns and ammunition and men. Just as a gun will be of little use unless of modern make and firing capacity, so will a soldier be of little use unless he is a sound, efficient and enduring man.

It is evident, therefore, that the present state of AmerianAmerican [sic] vitality, as well as its general trend, is a proper subject for a consideration in any investigation of the preparedness of this country for military defense. Fortunately, this physical preparedness for war is the best kind of preparedness for peace, for industrial progress, for a forward and upward-moving civilization.

In attempting to measure American vitality, I believe we should fix as a standard organic soundness and at least functional normality, and then endeavor to ascertain how far below such a standard of optimum condition the citizens of this country are registering. We should also endeavor to ascertain whether the movement is toward the optimum or away from it.

To ascertain the trend of American vitality, we are largely dependent upon the census and registration mortality statistics. These, unsatisfactory as they are, in regard to scientific accuracy, nevertheless strongly support the view that the movement of vitality is not toward the optimum, notwithstanding the steady fall in the general death rate. The diseases due to the germs, the communicable diseases, which chiefly affect young lives, are being rapidly eliminated, but the diseases due to faulty living habits, characterized by the wearing out or the giving out