Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1911-07-15
GREAT WASTE OF THE NATION
Is Preventable and Figures Quoted
Show What Big Factor Waste
is in Living Problems.

" Portion of address delivered by Ed.
ward +. McSweeney, chairman of the
Board of Trustees of the Boston Con.
sumptives Hospital, before the National
Association for the Study and Proven.
tion of Tuberculosis, recently held in
Denver, Colo.
"The large factors in the increase Of
the cost of living with the serious con-
sequences 1t entails on the American
people, are not the tariff nor the trusts,
nor the illegal actions of monopoly,
although they have tremendous infu-
ence on the increase cost of prices gen.
orally in the United States. The chief
cause of the increase in the cost of lv
ing is waste. The largest item is that of
waste from unnecessary disease and
death, in which tuberculosis is the
principal factor.
"The four great wastes Of today, more
lamentable because they are unneces-
sary, are preventable deaths, preventa-
BILE sickness, preventable conditions Of
low physical conditions and mental effic-
iency, and preventable ignorance, all of
which are playing their part in cruel
devastating destruction almost incredit-
able to human minds, and which togeth-
er operate to bring about an advance in
commodity prices by affecting the supply
of the necesssries of life, restricting
supply by taking persons out of pro-
ductive enterprises, thus making pro-
duction more expensive. At the same
time, while restricting production by
the amount of persons it has taken out |
of industry, this extends demand by in
creasing the consumption of goods. AS
a rule the victims of tuberculosis are
all confined to the productive period of
life.
"The total annual tariff revenue of
the Payne-Aldrich bill to the United
States Government is 80 per cent less
than the actual annual loss of wages and
cost of sickness and deaths from Tuber.
culosis alone in the United States.
"a greater number of persons are
taken out of productive industry by Tu-
berculosis every year in the United
States than there are wage-earners in
the State of Massachusetts,.
'The researches Of the Sage Founda-
lion and similar bodies have demon
'trated that the average family income
n the United States is less than $500.
0u this basis the entire family income
)f 5G2,500 householders would be re.
Iuired to pay the Nations yearly Tuber.
;ulosis bill alone.
"These figures give some idea of the
cost of tuberculosis alone. When We
,ome to the total cost to the Nation,
IF all preventable disease, we find the
igures even more startling.
1.-TWO years loss from preventable dis
'ase in the United States, including {
tuberculosis, would purchase all the
v heat, corn, oats, rye, barley, buckwheat,
potatoes, hay and tobacco produced last
;ear in the United States.
"One years loss from preventable
disease, including tuberculosis in the
United States would pay the National
lebt.
'It would pay, the annual interest on
he National debt of the world.
at would reimburse England and the
'ransvaal for the Boer war.
ut would repay the cost to the United
tates of the Spanish war.
'It is equal to the combined stock
nd bond issues of the railroads in the
United States.
"It would provide for the capitaliza.
ion of all the National banks in the
Nation and leave money enough over to |,
uild the Panama Canal"