Article August 24, 1918 Issue

From the Press

with contributions from Elmer Ellsworth Carey, Newton D. Baker

[Elmer Ellsworth Carey in Chicago (Ill.) Record Herald]

Birthdays convey suggestions of ill. What good suggestions do they convey? Suppose you did not know how old you were, would your usefulness in any way be impaired? Would any possible harm result? Suppose birthdays were abolished, what would be the result? The average strength of the human race would increase. Birthdays are responsible for the psychic dead-line of threescore and ten, which is more deadly than a machine gun. Thousands and tens of thousands die because they think they have reached the age limit. They die because they think they must, because it is customary. In nature there is no age limit. There is no inherent reason why one should die at the age of fifty or seventy-five or one hundred and fifty. A man at seventy should dress like a man of thirty-five, do the same work, think the same thoughts, and have no care for birthdays. Let us hasten the time when the shackles of the threescore and ten delusion shall fall away. All can do something to hasten the glad day by refusing to indulge in birthday worship.

[Secretary of War Newton D. Baker in The New York (N. Y.) Times]

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