Keeping Fit All the Way | Page 9

in this emergency than machines and guns, that we should burn them
out for lack of lubricant and rest or physical conservation?
WARNING EXAMPLES
A railroad president not long ago said that he had not the time to take
exercise or rest, that his salary was fifty thousand dollars a year, and
that his company had just given him a bonus of fifty thousand; hence
he could not shirk his responsibilities. He paid the full measure and was
buried in six months from the time of the warning. In one issue of the
New York Evening Post the following deaths were noted:
President Hyde, formerly of Bowdoin, fifty-nine years of age. Capt.
Volney Chase, of the Navy, fifty-six years of age. Capt. Campbell
Babcock, fifty years old. Colonel Deshon, fifty-three years old.
Our Cabinet officers and executives and the members of the Council of
National Defense are likely to forget, in the excess of their patriotism
and loyalty, that there is one edict higher than that of the greatest
government in the world. When Nature gives an order there is no
appeal to a higher court, and the excuse that a man has not the time to
obey, or is doing something that his country most urgently needs, has
no weight in that court. When Nature touches a man on the shoulder
and says, "Stop!" he stops. The penalty of frayed nerves, overworked
brains, and underworked bodies is failure of body and mind. The
premonitory symptoms are irritability, quarreling, depression,
fierceness and inefficiency of effort, and finally complete breakdown.
Three to four hours a week physical exercise under a scientifically
tested plan and arrangement will keep these men fit. Is the price in this
emergency too high to pay?
PHYSICAL FITNESS A VITAL FACT
Up to the time when this world conflagration started, a man's physical
fitness was merely a matter of individual interest. The general health of
the community was important, but that fact was not sufficiently
pressing to do much more than attract the attention of the health boards,

and perhaps a few recently organized and semi-philanthropic bodies.
But suddenly there flamed out a war in Europe, and at once the
countries involved found that upon the physical fitness of the people
would depend their lives and freedom. It was no longer an academic
question. It became an immediate and vital fact.
In September of 1914 the writer placed the following suggestion on the
top of his syndicate athletic article:
AMERICANS AWAKE!
Guard your shores and train your men, Teach your growing youth to
fight; Make your plans ere once again Ships of foes appear in sight.
Teach new arts until you hold In your bounds all things you need. Then
you can't be bought or sold; From commercial bonds be freed!
If Manhattan rich you'd save, If your western Golden Gate-- Train a
field force, rule the wave. Every day you're tempting fate!
Build the ships and train to arms, Make your millions fighting strength
That shall frighten war's alarms Ere they reach a challenge length.
He was immediately assailed as a militarist, and yet, had we but taken
those preparatory steps, millions of lives might have been saved.

CHAPTER IV
And thus we approach one of the problems which this book is designed
to solve. There are eight million men in this country between the ages
of forty-five and sixty-four. Probably we may count upon another
million from the men of sixty-four to seventy who would be
"prospects," as the mining-men say. These men represent nine-tenths of
the financial and executive strength of the United States.
THE SENIOR SERVICE CORPS

When I started the experiment of the Senior Service Corps at New
Haven, in the spring of 1917, all my men were over forty-five, and
several of them had passed the seventy mark; yet all found increased
health and efficiency from the prescribed regime. There was a distinct
gain, not only in health, but in spirits and in temper. Nerves that had
been at high tension relaxed to normal. Effort that had seemed
exhaustive became pleasurable. The ordinary problems of business or
finance, once so apt to be vexatious, lost their power to produce worry.
In fact, these men had renewed their youth; they had altered the
horizon-line of advancing age, across which only clouds of doubt and
apprehension could be seen, to that of youth, radiant with the sunshine
of hope and the promise of accomplishment.
[Illustration: INITIAL HIKE OF FIRST SENIOR SERVICE CORPS]
This war has started some new thoughts and has given emphasis to
others that may not be new but which have never been forced home.
One of these is the value of physical efficiency. A social scientist said
some twenty years ago that the "greatest nation of the future would be
the