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About The monitor. (Omaha, Neb.) 1915-1928 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 6, 1915)
THE EFFICIENT HUMAN MA-CHNE There is much talk about business efficiency these days. However, any kind of efficiency that does not call for a sound, -well-adjusted, smooth running human machine will never be anything else but a spurious effici (ncy, economically disastrous. The efficiency .slogan, to be effective, has got to be a kind of subtitle to the health conservation slogan—which lat ter is the greatest idea twentieth cen tury medicine has thus far evolved. What can be the use in expecting ideal effich ncy in the face of such facts as these: Every third or fourth of us has been dying between fifteen and forty-five, life’s economically most productive years of tuberculosis. Con sider here the waste—almost too great for the mind to grasp—resulting from our suffrance of this one entire ly preventable disease. One among eight of our women dies most cruelly of cancer, after suffering through many months to several years; many such unhappy women have kept work ing until this physical impairment has made them give up their tasks. Apart from the anguish all must sympathize with, what an economic loss is here presented. Of 20,000 applicants for life insurance, imagining themselves to I e in sufficiently good health to get pol - cies, 43 per cent were found to have some kind of heart or kidney or artery ailment. Six hundred and fifty thou sand working people die annually of preventable diseases. The Germans years ago worked cut scientifically the relation betwe. 11 hu man impairments and accidents, with the result that they have cut dov n the latter at least 50 per cent. The best surety against industrial acci dents is an alert mind in a virile body; on the other hand, the sure preliminary to accident is an exhaust ed, devitalized human machine, 't he corollary here is that a wise corpora tion, soulless if you like, will evei seek to establish the essential paral lelism of efficiency and humanity. The simple truth is, we Americans are the most extravagant people in or out of civilization, and in nothin! more so than in our flesh and blood • resources, it is precisely as if many thousands of us were falling blindly over a horn ndous precipice, at th! bottom of which wre have placed the best-equipped ambulances in the world, to take us off to the most mag nificent hospitals in the world—after we have hern hurt. Why is there net now a guarding rail around the edge of that precipice? Why are not tin danger signals hoisted? So that Hu finest machinery in the cosmos shall not be smashed beyond repair and carried forthwith to the scrap heap; or have to be mended to 70 or 50 or 30 per cent of its former efficiency, and with a much shorter daily running time than if it had remained whole and unimpaired. What, then, is such a railing? What are the danger signals? They are manufactured according to specifica tions prepared in the science of pre ventive medicine, and they are fig ured out on the basis that an ounce of prevention is worth tons of re gret, of most unnecessary suffering, of vast mat (‘rial loss. The main idea is to unmask the masked symptoms the only way to do which is by ex haustlve, at hast annual, examina tions of employees. By such means is real efficiency attained; the pro ductivity of plants increased, and ! length of days assured the valuable employe. Besides, through such pe riodic examinations the employer will learn how to place his impaired men; how little occasion there will be to discharge them utterly. He will not send a man with a leaky heart to paint a high wall; a weak-lunged man he will take out of a dusty shop and put to outdoor work, and so on. But here one sounds a warning note. Isn’t it a dreadful thing to reveal such impairments? Will not the working man be terrified to learn the truth? Such an argument is about as logical and as merciful as .f one should say: “Don’t, for heav en’s sake, put a lighthouse on those | rocks; it would reveal to those aboard ship the awful peril they are in!”— Scientific American. NOTHING MORE TO INVENT? Someone poring over the old files n the United States patent office at Washington the other day found a letter written in 1833 that illustrates he limitations of the human imagina tion. It was from an old employe of the patent office, offering his resignation o the head of the department. His reason was that as everything invent able had been invented, the patent of ice would soon be discontinued and .here would be no further need of his services or the services of any of his fellow clerks. He, therefore, decided to leave before the blow fell. Everything inventable had been in vented! The writer of this letter jour leyed in a stage coach or a canal boat. He had never seen a limited train or an ocean greyhound. He read at night by candlelight, if he read at all in the evening; more like ly he went to bed soon after dark and did all his reading by daylight. He had never seen a house lighted by ruminating gas. The arc and incan descent electric lights were not to be invented for nearly a half century. If he had ever heard of electricity, he thought of it as the mysterious and langerous fluid that strikes from the clouds during a thunderstorm. That it could be harnessed to do man’s will had never occurred to him. He never heard the clicking of a telegraph sounder. The telephone would have seemed as wonderful to him as a voyage to the moon. Motion lictures would have reminded him of black art, and the idea that a machine ■mild be invented whereby man would fly above the clouds like a bird, as cending and descending at will, would have seemed to him merely absurd. The modern printing press, the lino ype machine, which seems almost to hlnk; the X-ray, by means of which surgeons diagnose disease and injury and lay out their work with scientific certainty, these things were yet to be invented long after he was dead. He ■ould not imagine the automobile, now so common that they cover the streets and roads of all the world. He could not dream that a cannon would be made to throw a projectile more than twenty miles, that repeat ing rifles, revolvers and machine guns would be invented, that steel mon sters of the deep would speed invis ibly under the seas with the power to send a giant ocean liner to the bottom within a matter of moments. He lacked the imagination to see all the thousands and tens of thou sands of comparatively small inven tions that have come into being since his day, some of them for good and some for evil, but all telling a story of progress of one sort or another. Probably in this he did not differ from most of his fellowmen in his day. It is very likely most of his friends agreed with him that the limit of in vention had been reached. He seems unfortunately deficient in imagination and in optimism, as we read of his letter of resignation in the musty files of the patent office. But let us not take too much unction to our souls. We are quite as ignor ant of what the next eighty years may bring forth as he was of the future of American inventions. — Scientific American. Harry Buford, Police Chauffeur Making Good Among the young colored men of Omaha who are making good in their chosen line of work, an important place must be given Harry Buford, who for four years has been police chauffeur and in that position has won an enviable reputation for re eourcefullness, quickness of decision, bravery and intelligence, and received the commendation of his superiors. Harry is the only son of Henry A. and Lizzie Buford of 3510 Blondo street, and has had quite an interest ing career. He was bom at Atchison, Kan., July 10, 1888, and was brought to Omaha by his parents in 1891. He attended the public schools of this city, but he always had a “hankering for machinery." The first automobile he ever saw had a fascination for him. The driver left his car for a short time and Harry began an in vestigation, which was rudely inter rupted by the return of the driver, who kicked the young investigator off the sidewalk. But nothing daunted Harry, made up his mind that he “would run one of them things” someday. He kept his word. He learned so well that he was sent to the West Indies by the western branch of the Apperson automobile company to introduce their cars. He traveled through the islands and sub sequently went to Haiti, where he drove the first car ever seen on the island with the president of Haiti as his guest. It was not an easy mat ter to persuade that distinguished gentleman to ride, but once in the car he was so well pleased that he offered Harry a position as his official chauffeur, which was declined with thanks because the numerous revolu tions were rather trying on even Harry’s nerves, and he has got some nerve. Returning to Omaha Buford was appointed police chauffeur in 1911 where he has made good. The following list of headlines of articles appearing from time to time in the local newspapers will give some idea of the work young Buford has done: “Chauffeur Turns Detective;” “Harry Buford Stops Mad Race of Runaway Team;" "Laundry Theft Foiled by Buford;” “Buford Drags Boy From Wheels of Auto;" “Chauf feur Buford Is Some Slugger;” “A Baby, a Boy and a Dog Too Much for Sympathies of Buford, Called to Kill Sick Canine, But Tells Boy Where He Can Buy Medicine;” "Two Light Weight Omaha Policemen (Buford be ing on ' " -bdue a Scrapper;” “Parts of Omaha Flooded by Near Cloud burst; Police Chauffeur Buford and Patrol Conductor Burehardt Wade Hip Deep in Water, Rescuing People;” "North Omaha Bandit and His Part ner Caught.” This last item refers to the work done by Buford a week or two ago, a report of which ap peared in last week’s issue of The Monitor and for which he was com plimented for his intelligent and quick work by the department, with which, because of wit, kindheartedness and good nature, he is a general favorite. SUBSCRIBE FOR THE MONITOR. CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING RATES—1 % cents a word for single insertions, 1 cent a word for two or more insertions. No advertisement for less than 15c. Cash should ac company advertisement. FOR RENT—HOUSES FOR RENT—Downtown in middle of block, row of three houses, hence warmer; 25 per cent less coal this winter; $14. Couple of 2 and 3-room houses on edge of town, 4 to 6 blocks from car line; $4 and $5. Telephone Douglas 2107. Evenings, Walnut 2587. FURNISHED ROOMS FOR RENT. Modern furnished rooms, 1819 Izard street. Tyler 2519. Nicely furnished rooms with hot and cold water, $1.50 and up per week. Close to car line. Mrs. Hayes, 1826 North 23rd street. W. 5639. Nicely furnished roms; modern; for gentlemen only; $2.00 a week in ad vance. Mrs. Fanny Roberts, 2103 No. 27th street. Webster 7099. Mrs. L. M. Bentley-Webster, first class modern furnished rooms, 1702 N. 26th St. Phone Webster 4769. Nicely furnished rooms for respect able lady; private family; home privi leges with board if desired. Web. 7881. FOR SALE—MISCELLANEOUS. FOR SALE—An eight-room house, strictly modern, 2722 North 30th St. Terms. Webster 3602. If you have anything to dispose of, a Want Ad in The Monitor will sell it. WANTED. WANTED—Correspondents and sub scription solicitors for The Monitor in Nebraska cities and towns. SHOES made like new with our rapid shoe repair methods, one-fifth the cost. Sold uncalled-for shoes. We have a selection; all sizes, all prices. Men’s half soles.75c Ladies’ half soles.50c FRIEDMAN BROS. 211 South 14th St., Omaha. No. 9 South Main St., Council Bluffs. j NOW’S THE TIME TO PLANT BULBS Tulip Hyacinth Narcissus Crocus Lily For Winter and Spring Bloom STEWART SEED STORE 119 North 16th Street (Opposite Post Office)