AIDING THE DISABLED

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 78, 28 September 1918, Page 7

AIDING THE DISABLED

AMEEIOM METHODS.

A year ago (says a correspondent of The Times) the American committee of engineers in London drew up a report that suggested a departure in the treatment of the war cripple; They advised that national machinery be set up whereby the American war cripple, alter' his curative jieriod, should be returned to industry, instead of entering a national on a semi-charitable workshop. Their idea was that it was best for the man, as well as for society, that he should as quickly as possible again become an independent wage-earner. ' ../",■

To achieve this result the committee urged .that American manufacturers be asked to guarantee employment to as many cripples as the war should produce. Safeguards were to be set,up to ensure that the cripples were first taught and afterwards employed in skilled work, that a man with'one arm only, for'instance, should be taught .to run a latho rather than a lift. It was also provided that the, man should be. employed in bis home town wherever possible. .' The United States Government 1 is organising ths employment of its war cripples along the lines of this report. The Labour Bureau of each State has sent out a questionaire to all employers of labomv The response has been most gratifying. Pennsylvania alone has agreed to^ give immediate employment to 42,111 cripples as sbon as they come out of hospital,_ and each manufacturer has etated precisely the kind of cripple he can employ. Four thousand four hundred and fifty-one Pennsylyanians who have lost the fingers of one hand .are certain of employment, 401 who have lost both'feet, and-so on, through 39 categories. ' AH United States _ soldiers fighting ai the front are certain, no matter what their wounds, of being again a genuine part of economic life, ami of not being, a burden upon charity. Their names will .appear not only on pension lists, but on self-respecting pay-rolls. America is determined not to make of her.heroes. . ■ . . : .