The Norfolk weekly news-journal. (Norfolk, Neb.) 1900-19??, 1910-05-13

to the sanitary well-being OF the peo-
pie. The fearful significance of the
unrestricted journeying from place to
place of those carrying infectious dis.
eases, and the criminal negligence
that permits 1t has not yet dawned
upon our senses. The assessor and
the census taker enumerate every.
thing but the pathetic tragedies of
human life. There are no bulletins
on the causes of individual failure or
defeat, which, too frequently, have
their origin in national wrong. The
woes of the submerged and inefficient,
the causes of human grief and despair,
the hopeless struggles against adver-
sity, the predisposing influence of toll,
privation, ignorance, wrongs and over
CrOwding to beget disease, vice, crime
and mental and moral obliquity are
not bulletined by the department of
commerce that issues the government
reports and yet they are essential to
eluCidate the problem of conserving
our national vigor as people. These
are really the dominant factors that
determine nations destiny and not
its forts and battleships or the state
of the weather or the condition of the
crops.
Racial vigor is not an immutable
thing, like the orbit of the earth or
the recurrence of the seasons, beyond
human adjustment or modification.
1t touches every angle of our indus
trial energy, partakes of every phase
of human relations and affairs and
is influenced largely by the viciss-
tudes of its environment. 1t is not
a medical or a moral question but an
economical one. 1t is not divine reve-
lation but humanism we need, not
psychological but physical methods we
must employ. The effacement of pow
erty would do more to eXtirpate dis
ease than all the utopian dreams of
would-be reformers. The abbreviation
of the hours of toll and the establish
ment of wholesome means of recrea-
ton, the practical application of the
science of eugeniCs, the enlightment
and education of the public on veneer
cal. tuberculosis and other diseases
and sanitariums accessible to all
would do more to invigorate the race
than all the crusades and propaganda
of those who work in the spot light
to blight the leaves of the tree that
is getting its vitality in the dark re-
cesses behind the scenes.
The rampant neuroticism and psy-
comania that is disturbing our civil
life and social order is conceived and
born and bred in our industrial idol
tary. The selfish CommerCialism that
poisons and eXhausts race makes an
avenue through which misery and
death must enter. The unjustitiable
waste of human life, the criminal dis
tributiOn of preventable disease, the
Interpretation. vice, crime and insan-
ity caused by ineXcusable processes
of commerce or methods of govern
ment are large and comprehensive
Undergraduates for rulers, legislators
and humanitarianS, rather than phySi-
clans and sanitarianS. Until the gov
eminent realizes the economical i'm
portanCe of spending more money for
| its health agencies than it devoteS
' to it's interstate commerce commission,
until the church realizes its opportGn-
| ity and the instrumentalities it has at
hand to save men through physical
means and the public schools are
made something besides a gigantic
wheel, upon which the children of the
nation are physically broken, ours
must be a work of education and en-
| lightment. 1t does seem discouraging
to attempt to uplift a people that do
not desire to be elevated, but ours
is the duty to keep sowing the seed,
| to
BE to other souls,
The cup of strength in some great
agony;
Be the sweet presence of a good diff
fused,
And in diffusion ever more intense!"