The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1911-08-18

were soldiers wounded in the battle of
gettysburg, and three times as many
persons needlessly die from typhoid
fever as met death in that tragic strue.
gle.
1t is the old, old story of the mote -
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 $4,000 yearly deaths
as our army officers were for the tragedies
IN our Spanish war camps. And our motive
IS just as mercenary was that of the physi-
clan who gave typhoid germs to gain 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 polluted water supply and there
gushes forth sewage. And when our children
ask for water we give them poison
10 be suitable-that is, to be potable and
Mt for domestic use-water must be practi-
cally free from pathogenic germs, color sedi-
ment, odor, taste and turbidity Hardness
makes laundering difficult Iron spells linen
Carbonic-acid gas turns water pipes brown
Algae make water taste bad. Water supplies
differ widely as human beings, Pure, whole
some water" the term set forth in many
water contracts, is, then, wholly a relative
term. Really pure water is rare thing be-
cause there hardly exists in nature water that
does not 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
speaking, the question of good water supply
is merely question of being willing to spend
the money necessary to obtain it. Hence
there ought 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 the water that all too often we
actually get. DR.. F. w. Shumway reporting
on water conditions in Michigan, says in part:
"Of the ninety-nine replies received, 70 per
cent reported the water as good, II per cent
as fair, and 10 per cent as Of bad quality. {.
The replies from 1924 localities indicate that
in 43 per cent of these localities the public
water supplies are in danger of contamina-
tion.' Dr. @. 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 CT the cfty's water comes from Lake
Michigan. but that there 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 w. 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. lnd.) empties into the Grand Calumet,
which, as it flows through Hammond. is al
most nnspeakably vile and purescent And
this stream empties into the lake only 5000
feet from the waterworks intake" Dr. Ed
ward Rartow, Analysing conditions in Illinois,
says that IAN examination of the untreated
lake water shows that unsatisfactory water is
frequently delivered at Evanston, Lake For
est, Glencoe, North Chicago Waukegan Will
mette and Winnetka. And that the wa.
ter supplies of all cities which use unfiltered
lake water are shown to be impure at times. u
And this condition Of the water supply may
be taken as typical Of the entire country. A
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 cesspool
and we'll 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 we'll hole, and the rams wash the f1ltl
from the former into the latter. We defle the
surface of the ground so that every rainstorn
sweeps the defilement into streams. Did
you ever stand at the edge Of barnyard and
barn and pig pen to the manure piles below
slowly accommodating in pools of reddish black
and draining away into nearby stream, and
so on into some ones drinking water? Oh
have you ever stood by river bank and
watched sewer bechng 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 us
are doing. Like the dog. We have turned tc
our own vomit. For, to quote Theodore Hor
ton, Chief Engineer of the New York State
Health Department, I'VE pump filth into g
stream by one pipe, and by another pipe We
pump it out again to drink
Let me give you some concrete instances
of how our drinking water is def1led In rura
New York inspectors from Ithaca found q
farmer, who patterning after Hercules meth
cd of cleaning the Augean stables. had built
his barn directly large brook, which
carried away all his stable manure. This
brook was one of the sources of 1thaca's wa
ter supply
Along the valley of the SusQuehanna there