The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1914-01-24
A~FR6AMER|cAN CULLINCS

How many people in Atlanta" asks
the Constitution of that city, know to
a certainty that their domestic serv-
ants do not come from diseased
homes?" And In the discussion it puts
forth these pertinent truths: The
business of safeguarding the health
of the community, in its negro as well
as its white sections, is hat of self
preservation and not sentiment or
philanthropy The disease germ is
the original democrat. 1t ignores the
boundary line of race, Of wealth and
Of station, as we'll as of mere geog-
raphy. 1t knows no ~prejudices, in
herited or acquired. 1t is murder
ously impartial In its depredations.
You may not believe you are your
brothers keeper and you may be a
trihe cynical about your duty to the
negro. But you can hardly be Degli-
gent about your duty to your own
child, and your own health personally,
and keep a clean conscience"
The Post for years has been stress
ing the Importance of this very ques-
ton for all southern cities. 1t has re-
peatedly urged upon the people Of
Houston that they cannot afford, even
from the selfish point of view, to ig-
more the living copditions of the ne
gro population. The negroes are the
domestic servants of the servant-em-
ploying class of the southern cities.
The negroes are a part of the life of
the south, and will always be, and
even If the white who employ them
are not concerned in philanthropy at
all, they 1t to themselves to have
a deep concern for everything affect
ing the health and morals of the me-
gro people.
The nobler part is, of course, to real
lie in a broad and sympathetic sense
our obligation to aid the negroes to
better standards of living, because
they r in so many respects depend
ent upon the whites and because they
SO implicitly rely upon the whites.
1t will be to our everlasting honor
and glory if history shall be able to
say Of us that we accepted the prob
lens the war left us, and worked them
out kindly, intelligently and well, but
if we are concerned only for our own
welfare, then it viii be secondary phil.
anthropy for us to see that living con-
ditions among the negroes are such
that they will not menace the health
and prosperity Of the white people.
Negroes living amid insanitary con
ditions in southern cities are going
to suffer the hardships Of poverty and
disease, they are going to suffer con
tamination and destruction in a NOR
al sense, they are going to be a heav-
lily consuming and inefficient element
Of population.
But the whites will not be able to
escape h consequences. They will
have TO bear the economic losses that
a large and inefficient mass is certain
to %inflict, they will be victimized by
the diseases that spread death and
disaster among poorly housed and
miserably environed human beings,
and they will not escape the deadly
blight of the immortality and vice that
thrive among the ignorant, the des.
perate and the neglected poor.
The vital statistics of every south.
ern city reveal the inevitable con,
sequence Of ~ineficience to conditions
among the negroes-the servant class
that brings into well-kept homes the
deadly germs that multiply amid the
miserable conditions that aflict the
negro sections of SO many southern
cities.-Houston (Tex.) Post.