The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1911-08-31

"e''1soul y ana three times as many Esrvv-
persons needlessly die from typhoid
fever as met death in that tragic strue.
gle
1t is the old, old story of the mote n
and the beam. We do not see the enor- /"
nifty of this terrible wrong because we
are ourselves the authors of it. We are lust
as responsible for those 5000 yearly deaths
as our army officers were for the tragedies
In our Spanish war camps And our motive
is just as mercenary as was that of the physi-
clan who gave typhoid germs to gain a her
ltage For We too, are actuated by financial
reasons: we are unwilling to pay the price
OF water publication So we continue to smite
the rock OF a polluted water supply and there
gushcs forth sewage. And when our children
ask for water give them poison
To be suitable-that is, to be potable and
Mt for domestic use-water must be practi-
cally free from pathogenic germs, color sedi-
ment, oder, taste and turbdity. Hardness
makes laundering difficult Iron spoils linen.
Carbonc-acid gas turns water pipes brown.
Algae make water taste bad. Water supplies
differ widely as human beings. Pure, whole
some water" tho term set forth in so many
water contracts. is. then wholly 4 relative
term. Really pure water is a rare thing be-
cause there hardly exists in nature water that
does net contain some foreign ingredients
Not all Of these are harmful however so that
water that is fit to drink is as common as
really pure water is rare. So that generally
speai,g, the question Of a good water supply
is merely a question Of being willing to spend
the money necessary to obtain it. Hence
there ousat to be no community in the United
States that does not have a plentiful supply
of perfectly wholesome water.
Anything but wholesome however is the
quality Of he water that all too often we
actually get. DR.. F W. Shumway reporting
on waite conditions in Michigan. says in part:
"Of the riEety-nine replies received, 10 per
cent reported the water as good, II per cent
as fair, and 10 per cent as of bad quality.
The RELIES from 1874 localities indicate that
in 43 per cent of these localities the public
water supplies are in danger of contamina-
ton" Or O. o. Sutherland, discussing water
conditions in Wisconsin. says that in his state
nearly every stream used for any kind Of
supply is contaminated to some extent by
sewage" Health Commissioner G. A. Bading.
speaking Of Milwaukee's water supply, says
that most OF the city's water comes from Lake
Michigan but that there are still 5000 wells
IN existence. 81 per cent of which have been
shown to be contaminated. Lake Michigan
is the source of water for many other towns
near it. One of the tributaries of Lake Michi-
gan is the Grand Calumet river. And here is
what Health Commissioner ". A. Evans OF
Chicago has to say of the Grand Calumet:
THE greater part of the sewage from the
business and residential districts (of Ham
mond Ind empties into the Grand Calumet,
which as it flows through Hammond. is al
most urspeakably vile and putrescent And
this stream cmpties into the lake only 5000
feet from the waterwOrks intake" Dr. Ed
ward Bartow analysing conditions in Illinois,
says that an examination of the untreated
lake water shows that unsatisfactory water is
frequently delivered at Evanston, Lake For
est, Glencoe, North Chicago. Waukegan, VIII
mette and Wnnetka. . And that the wa
ter supplies of all cities which use unflltered
lake water are shown to be impure at times"
And this condition of the water supply may
be taken typical of the entire country.
very considerable proportion OF our drinking
water is absolutely unfit for human cOnsump-
, ton
Criminal negligence is the sole and only
cause of such condition. We dig a cesspool
and well in the same yard and the contents
of the one seep through the earth into the
other. We place privy vault few feet from
our well hole, and the wash the filth
from the former into the latter. We defile the
surface Of the ground so that every rainstorm
sweeps the defilement into our streams. Did
you ever stand at the edge of barnyard and
watch the rain falling from the roof Of the
barn and pig pen to the manure piles below.
and draining away into nearby stream. and
so on into some ones drinking water? Or
have you ever stood by a river bank and
watched sewer belching forth its infinitely
more harmful human corruption? The idea
of drinking such nauseating stuff Is not pleas
ant: but that IS exactly what millions of
are doing Like the dog, have turned to
our own vomt. For, to quote Theodore Hor-
ton Chief Engineer of the New York State
q M into
stream by one pipe and by another pipe we
pump it out again to drink"
Let NE give you some concrete instances
of how our drinking water is defled. In rural
New York inspectors from Ithaca found
farmer, who patterning after Hercules meth
cd of cleaning the Augean stables. mad built
his barn directly over a large brook which
carried away all his stable manure This
brook was one of the sources Of Ithacas
ter supply
Along the valley of the Susquehanna there