The Pittsburgh Press (February 1, 1946)
I DARE SAY —
Of life and death
By Florence Fisher Parry
I see by my favorite newspaper that President Truman, taking example from the Big Shots in Management and Labor (to say nothing of Winston Churchill), is going to Florida for a rest.
I dare say this Escape From Reality works in the cases of those who are assured quarters that will in small measure approximate the comforts of home. But for you and me? I can think of nothing worse that joining the Restless Hordes who, each year and between seasons, make for our crowded resorts in the outworn delusion that they are going to benefit by such chance.
In times past it was the fashion of doctors to advise a change of climate to patients whose ailments either eluded medical diagnosis or who hadn’t anything the matter with them. but today, except in the cases of those who really have maladies demanding another climate, this is recognized as just an easy way of indulging the patient’s sense of self-importance.
“The doctor thinks I need a change” is one of the most abused cover-ups employed by those who want a way provided to escape their responsibilities. Such persons simply aren’t on to themselves, or are completely lacking in self-discipline. The “cure” to their malady is in their own hands, in most cases, and a more forthright admission, on the part of the doctor, that this is indeed so, is definitely in order – now especially, when travel is so congested and housing so critical.
Chronic travel can indeed become a disease in itself; a literal running away from one’s self! We know that this is so in the case of the idle rich; and it bids fair to becoming as popular as appendectomy and tonsillectomy were a generation ago! One real satisfaction that came out of the War was the rigorous curbing of unnecessary travel. But transportation still is almost as critical a problem as during the War; housing (which embraces public hostelries as well), a major crisis.
How good Americans reconcile this sudden epidemic of Travelitis with good citizenship I am at loss to understand. The intelligent person surely realizes that it is his duty to stay at home if at all possible – now more than ever!
Besides, getting-away from it all is at best a dubious resort. Change, recreation, a fresh outlook, a moderate degree of play; these are important adjuncts to good health; but any one of them can be got without one’s having to go to the extreme of costly travel. My experience is that it burns up more energy to go on a trip than to remain at home; to say nothing of the accumulated headaches awaiting ones return!
What for?
I am reminded here of a question asked by an earnest Chinese anxious to understand this great America:
“Tell me,” he asked, “what do you Americans do with all the time you save?”
We are the astonishment of the world until we are in the prime of life; our energy, our ingenuity, our prodigal output, our generous wastefulness! Oh, until we are 40 or 50, the “time” we save is bummed a thousand ways! Then, very suddenly, we have exhausted it; we are spent; we develop “symptoms” of this ailment and that. Quite abruptly, a great number of us die – too soon. And those who do not die are just as suddenly old. No ripening, no quiet slow mellowing. We are young; we are old. As quickly as one might turn a page…
We have been in too much of a hurry saving time to spend it. We have been too busy DOING, to Live.
Wastrels, we.
Yet – what Givers, what spenders on other things, other people! The best cars, ranges, refrigerators, planes; the greatest laboratories; the most towering buildings; the most splendid bridges; homes, schools, that are the wonder of the world.
And charities! What WEALTH lavished on the DISEASES OF OTHERS, on Research, on Good Works!
Disproportion
I read in the current Newsweek an amazing paragraph of figures that deal with our national charities: In the last 50 years voluntary health agencies have reached the astounding number of 20 thousand! Of these, the American Red Cross takes in 331 million dollars a year. Yes, we are willing to pay for the welfare of others, neglecting ourselves always, letting ourselves “go.”
Now the National Health Assn. has made a study of how the vast sums we give to agencies are apportioned. I did not mention this the other day when I wrote about the March of Dimes; but it is a fact that although in this country we have only 175,000 cases of infantile paralysis, as compared with 680,000 cases of tuberculosis and 500,000 cases of cancer, this distress has been so fabulously promoted that $94 is available for each infantile paralysis case, as compared with $22 each for tuberculosis victims and $8 for each cancer case!
As regards heart disease, which causes the greatest number of deaths – (And such a heartbreaking number among children suffering from rheumatic fever) – there is available only THREE CENTS PER CASE!
Yet this last-named disease is the most tragic of all, cutting down thousands of little children far more relentlessly and needlessly than infantile paralysis.
Pity it is indeed that these other causes cannot claim so dramatic a sponsor, so eloquent an example, as Franklin D. Roosevelt!