Arizona republican., 1904-11-12
PHOENIX EMBELLISHMENTS
A New York Publications Article on
 the Subject.

"Charities, a New York journal in
 it's issue of November 5, contained an
 article, Phoenix and the Health Seek l CTS of the Great Southwest" It was
 contributed by Frank D. Witherbee
 whom many Phoenicians remember.
 He was about a year ago in the office 1 of Dwight B. Heard. He was formerly l connected with the Philadelphia So- ciety for Organizing Charity and he
 is now superintendent of the Joint Ap- plication Bureau of the New York Charity Organization Society and As sociation for Improving the Condition | of the Poor. It was in this capacity
 that he came to Phoenix to study what
 has come to be a great social problem
 of the southwest.
 | Advance sheets of Mr. Witherbee's articles have been received in Phoenix
 It goes into the subject fully and at
 great length. The article contains seven illustrations, mostly views of sanitarium ranch camps and desert scenes. The article begins with a de- scriptiOn of the climatic regions of this region which MT. Witherbee regards
 as ideal One advantage of a cure of tuberculosis in a region of the altitude of Phoenix is that the lungs are not stimulated and distended as in the cases of those whose lungs are healed in the clear dry air of the mountains of Colorado. In those cases patients returning to a less invigorating atmo- sphere are threatened by the danger of the disease regaining a foot hold After brief description of the cli-
 mate of the Salt river valley Mr. Witherbee says: With all this sun shine both winter and summer. there is the minimum amount of moisture in the atmosphere. Sufferers from a hot term in a great city know what it means when the weather bureau re- ports eighty or ninety per cent of relative humidity in the air. In Phoe- nix the average for the year is only forty-six per cent of relative humidity while the records show as low as four per cent. An authority has stated that range in the thermometer of sixty five or seventy degrees with an atmo- sphere forty-five to fifty-five per cent
 unite in a condition ideal for man. Winter days in Phoenix closely approx -mate these conditions nor is the heat in summer intolerable.
 There is a description of the tent i ing system. Under the heading of
 Health Refugees" the article con- tinues, "Out of winter population in Phoenix of some 15,O00 or 16,O GOO it is estimated that from 5000 to 5000 are visitors, most of whom are health ! seekers. They have been drawn there 1 by the wonderful stories told of the climate and its power to heal but there are few who realize just what such a 1 journey involves and how hopeless may | be the quest. Because Phoenix has climate that is unrivaIed it is expected that 1t can work miracles of cure in every case. As a matter of fact the great majority of the people come too 1 late to be helped by any power on earth. A local physician with eigh- i teen years experience says that four fifths of those who have come to Phoe-
 nix should never have left home"
 Under the head of Lodging House i Evils" MT. Witherbee says: Perhaps ! the worst evil in such a place as Phoe- nix Is a situation which makes it pos sible for sick people to remain about town when the only place where they can possibly derive good is on some
 ranch in the outskirts or on the desert Phoenix is full of lodging houses, in most instances, nothing but furnished room establishments which do not | supply meals. Their keepers make a great pretense of taking no sick per | sons.r Advertisements loom large with 1 this one condition. As a matter of fact it depends altogether upon how l sick the person is who applies for ac- commOdation. If the patronage of these establishments were not made up | very largely of those who come seek i ing health four-fifths of them would go out of business. Some of them
 make no discrimination at all, taking
 all who come except perhaps those un- able to walk. The better places, how ever are more particular and no one l who has ever experienced it can for | get the awful sense of ostracism which follows his efforts to get suitable quarters. This is as it should be, only discrimination should be much more strict, strict enough to run all such | houses out of business. No one suffer i ing of tuberculosis should be allowed | to go to such a climate and live under conditions infinitely worse for him | than those from which he came.'
 | The writer speaks of those who come here for their health expecting to find ! employment at starvation wages to 1 keep them alive until their health is restored and he points out the diff
 culty or impossibility of doing so. At i tention is called to the miserable con- ditiOn of those who come here without adequate provision for the future. The end naturally comes to such persons in | the almshouse.