"There is no need of appointing a lumbering committee to go around the world and investigate the injurious effect of powder and dynamite on the human system. It is well known that a very small quantity of either is sufficient to put a boy's eye out, tear off his fingers or produce one of the most horrible diseases, lockjaw--a disease which boasted antitoxin fails to cure in nine cases out of ten. I don't see how any man in his right senses would dare to put such explosives into a young boy's hands. Surely such a man must be afflicted with what the Germans call '_Precocious Imbecility_.' Permitting boys to kill themselves and each other is almost worse than they do in Germany. Boys there are carefully protected until they are old enough to serve some purpose or to be killed in the service of the King, while the American small boy has almost no protection and does not seem to be reared for any purpose unless it is to be killed in the service of the King of Commerce. I speak advisedly for I perceive that he is already being caught in the net-work of at least two great business interests--those of Pyrotechnics and Antitoxin, to say nothing of the lesser interests of hospital nurses and doctors. What will come next to entangle him and hold him there it were vain to forecast. As to the doctors I am one of them, and ought to know what I am talking about. I know it's money in my pocket to have the beastly thing go on; but I hope you will believe me when I say that I don't want it to go on." (Cries of "Yes!" "Yes.") "I came to this country straight from the German University, with high hopes, but I have had to let them down fully half way. Not quite down to the lethargic German level but lower down than I could possibly have imagined: for what do I see, in this new-born land? A nation of freemen, courting self-destruction! Arming their ignorant young boys and hardened criminals against themselves! What do I see the next day and the next after the glorious Independence Day of which I heard so much in my own country? I see the dead, the mutilated, the dying, the weeping mothers and trembling sisters! I landed in New York the last days of beautiful June eager to grasp my brother practitioners by the hand and help them to make this people as strong and healthy as they were prosperous and free. But _what_ did I hear in this free land? A voice from the high seat of a great City Government saying: 'Prepare the way! Prepare the way! (Not for the "Prince of Light") but for the prince of darkness, death, din and disorder! Stand by with lint, bandages and antitoxin! Have an ambulance within call; for the prince that rules this day is sure to leave hosts of wounded and dying in his track.' When I stood still and asked why they allowed this thing to be, they looked fierce at me and warned me to take lessons in American patriotism. Certainly '_precocious imbecility_' must be at the bottom of this whole business."