The Ocala banner., 1914-06-12
MANS DUTY TO HIS NEIeHRoR

III du dIIlCIG prepare GU Ny ~s
seph Y Porter, of the state board OF
health, attention Is called to the re- |
sponsibility of one man to his neigh |!
Dor in the matter of general SANTA |
ton. DIR. Porter says:
Every man is his brothers keeper.
"He can't help it any more than the
neighbors can, much as they might
like to. He can't evade the respon-
sibility of such relationship unless he
lives in the wilderness and never
comes into contact with his fellow
man. 1t is law of society as fixed
as any other enacted by the Al
mighty.
"His conduct, good or evil or care
less, must affect others accordingly.
Individual responsibility to society
can not be escaped, whether it be in
morals or in physical affairs. The
criminal lowers the moral tone of the
community, disgraces it and exerts a
degrading influence. The man who
lives in dirty surroundings invites
disease and thereby endangers the
health. and possibly the lives of his
neighbors.
"The conclusion is inevitable that
it is the duty of every man to keep
himself and his premises clean and
healthful, not only for his own sake
but for that of those who by force
of circumstances must associate with
him.
Community cleanliness, communi-
ty sanitation, is just as much a duty
that every man owes his neighbors
as to be decent morally, fo- physical
illness has a strangely intimate con-,
nection with moral degeneracy.
1T is fact that in the past and to
a large degree in the present, law
strictly enforced is essential to Sc
cure municipal sanitation. This is
due partly to ignorance, partly to per-
versity and influence. Some other
wise good citizens will persist in al
lowing their dogs to run at large un-
muzzled, and they make fearful fuss
when the police interfere for the ac-
tual safety of the community. They
howl louder than their worthless ours
when any one presumes to enforce
the idea that the right of society are
superior to their own selfishness.
Some of the ablest scientists in
the world have demonstrated that ty-
phoid fever is a germ disease, trans
mitted by flies, yet it requires the
services of the police to compel the
screening of earth closets. The same
investigators have proven the trans
mission of yellow fever, of malaria
and other diseases by mosquitoes;
they have pointed out the methods of
prevention, yet the pleas and protests
of sanitarians and health boards are
disregarded by the vast majority of
Floridans. ,
"The opening decades of the twen-
tieth century have been marked byI
splendid organizations and magnif-
cent effort for the moral uplift of
those who need uplifting. There has
been practical recognition of the
fact that morals can not be perma-
nently improved while physical con-
ditions remain unimproved-tha the
hungry man in ragged clothes is not
likely to be or to become a devoumt
milton of the great fact of human
brotherhood, but there has not been
corresponding organized effort to-
ward increasing the knowledge of
proper sanitation or to arouse a SEN
timent for better healthfulness
through cleanliness among the same
classes that need the uplift.
Good health is the bases of good
morals. You can't deny or dodge
that fact, and the great moral uplift
of the world won't come so loEg as
you work on any other hypothesis.
ut is plain, hard fact that Florida
will not get into it's full stride toward
its greatest prosperity, until the indi-
vidual citizen, no matter how exalted
or humble, shall realize his personal
responsibility in lowering the sick
rate and the death rate through vol
untary, and not legally enforced, sani-
tation, through conscientious and in
telligent effort to avoid disease: in
other words by doing everything in
his power to raise the standard of,