The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1915-11-17
FIGHTING PELLAGRA
IN INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES

The United States Public Health
Service has reached the conclusion
that pellagra is caused from an i'm
perfect, or a one-sided diet, and that
it can in most cases be cured by pro-
per diet. The experience of medical
men who have studied and watched
the disease and sought for its cause
and cure, we believe, will be in ac-
cord, at least to great extent, with
the conclusion reached.
The fact that the disease has been
more often found in industrial COM
munities, were there are no COWS, no
butter, no gardens, and where the
diet is one-sided and practically the
sanAe for every day in the year, than
in other localities, goes long way
to prove that the Public Health Ser
vice is on the right track. Whether
they have discovered the sole cause of
the disease or not, they have given
us ground for beginning fight to
stamp out the scourge in this section
of the country.
We have believed for long, time
that the corporations in this state
which own and rent out the homes in
which their operatives reside, and
which expect these people to reside
in these homes, near their places of
work, should be required by statute
to give to these people real homes
and this they do not do when the peo-
pie are huddled together in a small
village, with no dividing line between
the houses, with no garden fenced off
for the families, and no back yard
in which the children can play and
feel that they are at home. We have
believed and now believe, that if
these corporations are to expect or
require their operatives to reside on
the corporations grounds, then they
should be required to lay off to each
household at least an acre of land, on
which to operate garden, keep apd
maintain a cow, and other animals,
and to raise poultry, and that the diff
ferent lots should be securely fenced.
We have had this idea for the rea-
son that great many poor people
have been driven by poverty and
otherwise from the farms to these in
dustrial communities, and they have
not been accustomed to living as they
are required to do in these villages;
and because every girl in the land is
entitled to have place to play, and
every boy place to fight, which is
their very own. But now that the
cause of pellagra is at least in some
degree attributable to the fact that
people are thus huddled together
where they cannot have the common
necessities of good health, it becomes
the duty of the law-abiding power
more than ever to make such require
ments of the corporations as shall
enable every head of a family to keep
a cow with which to supply the family
with milk and butter, place to grow
peas and beans, raise chickens and
have plenty of eggs and other things
necessary in fighting the disease of
pellagra. Having made these pro-
visions for the people, the corpora
tions should require the people who
work. for them to comply with the
reasonable requirements for promot-
ing good health as above indicated,
and should refuse employment to
those people who refuse to avail
themselves of the opportunities thus
given them just as they should not
allow a man to live in their villages
who refuses to send their children to
school, or to properly take care of his
dependent family.
The fact is that the corporation of
VAN NAooo AAoiSoGCu WulCu Sudll Duy
up lands in the neighborhood of its
plant, divide the same up into one,
two and three or five acre lots, and
sell them at actual cost to its opera
tives, and help them to build and own
their own homes, will have gone a
long ways towards securing a better
and more dependable class of work
ingmen, and in addition will be ad-
judged by the public to have grasped
in some degree the great opportunity
given it to tighten the labors of the
laboring and to help carry the load
in life for the helpless. A better
understanding will come about be-
tween capital and labor when capital
shows more thought for the physical,
moral and financial well-being of la
Dor because then labor will sympa-
thize and appreciate the worries and
trials of those who administer the
funds of the capitalists.