Bosses and Workers > Vocational Re-Habiliation
According to contemporary estimates, an army of a million soldiers could expect between ten and thirty-six thousand permanent casualties each year. But, these figures represented an opportunity rather than a crisis. Even the mutilation and trauma of battle did not represent insuperable obstacles to productive instruction.
Modern society was capable of re-engineering these damaged human bodies back to – at least – their former levels of productivity. “Experience has proved,” the Commercial Education committee reported, “that a great proportion of cripples can be restored not only to former usefulness, but not infrequently to an earning power greater than possessed before the war …”
As American soldiers became casualties, the Chamber urged that they receive productive therapy. It was “a serious mistake to treat crippled soldiers, sailors and others as objects of pity and charity,” argued the members of the Commercial Education committee, “the real need and desire of these men is an opportunity to take their place once more in the ranks of society as useful, self-supporting, efficient citizens.”