My friend paused for a minute in his reminiscences. He was evidently lost in thought. I had been listening to him with both pity and a feeling of shame. He evidently had had no opportunity to talk to anyone for a long time. I could understand his need to unburden himself and determined to listen to the end without interrupting him. Finally he began to speak again, at first slowly, and then with passion and force. "You, who are now guiding our destiny, look about you in this busy hive of a city and in our entire country at the benefits we have bestowed upon you everywhere, on land and sea, under and above land and sea. The beautiful edifices, libraries, homes, department stores, office buildings and theatres; the transportation and distributive systems; ships, submarines, subways, busses, automobiles, airplanes and trains, the creative and destructive inventions; radio, television, radar, atomic bomb, moving picture; penicillin, and other new curatives and the thousand discoveries and achievements. All these are for your benefit, so that you young people can live and enjoy a more healthy and longer life. "I can't say that the system of life we inherited and pass on to you is good. It isn't. But under the circumstances, we have done much better for you than our parents did for us; and we hope that you will do even better for your children. "A great many of us were stunted by lack of play time in our youth; our education was neglected for necessary labor; but we carefully guarded you and gave you amusements, and sports for your normal physical, intellectual and spiritual development. We were the taxpayers who maintained the city, state, and federal governments. Many of us died in the terrific pressure and struggle of realizing our aims. A great many of us passed away in middle age; many of us are in insane asylums; and those few of us that survived, are now becoming helpless, disabled, and infirm, _secundum naturam_. The ravages of nature and time take many of us early and take a large toll of us over the age of sixty-five. Our span of life after sixty-five is very short. We die very rapidly; therefore, our cost and responsibility to you are not large or long lasting. "Your duty is to make us happy and comfortable for the few days or years left to us, if not for love then at least out of gratitude. We don't want you to have to appear _in foro conscientiae_, before the tribunal of conscience, to justify your actions and to try to attain a future peace of mind. "An elaborate funeral with flowers, or your lamentations at our death means nothing to us. But your love, kindness, and generosity to us while we are alive are most important. We want to die feeling you will have no cause for remorse over your treatment of us.