Excerpt from Periodic Physical Examination of Employes: Its Economic and Social Value: Address Delivered Before the National Association of Manufacturers May 26, 1915

Why should a turtle live longer than a man? What does the turtle contribute to the biological progress of the universe that he should be granted three times the span of human life?

Is it not a little galling to human pride when we reflect that man, supposedly at the center of the universe, bending most of its mighty forces to his will, is yet unable to distance the tortoise in the race for longevity?

It is all very well to say that the life of the turtle is flat, stale and unprofitable. After all, he lives long and apparently comfortably and happily - barring such accidents as getting into our soup. Man, on the contrary, lives a brief existence, hampered, nagged and handicapped by countless miseries and disabilities, that not only shorten his existence but embitter it, causing him as a rule to break down prematurely, and preventing him from achieving what mind and body are capable of achieving when working in harmony with Nature's laws.

Man has defied the forces of Nature, and harnessed many of them in his service, but concomitantly he has broken many of the laws of Nature, creating an artificial environment, protective in some respects, menacing in others.

The question that confronts us is this: Is it inevitable that the higher and more complex life of man should be shorter than the lower life of the turtle?

So far as science can reveal, there seems to be no principle of either life or death. There are many good and bad reasons why men die, but no underlying necessary reason why they must die.

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