The Palatka news and advertiser., 1916-09-29
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> CLEAN UP WEEK. I
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Cleanup week in Florida!

Cleanup week in Florida!
The Civics Department of the
Florida Federation of Woman's Clubs
is sponsor for it-with their feminine
instructive dislike of dirt they have
recognized the necessity and have put
the idea into working order by de-
signaling the six working days, from
Monday, October 8, to Saturday the
18th, as the time for all Florida ci-
ties to get busy, to gather up the
stray tin cans and trash and hide
them or better yet, to destroy them.
The women at first proposed to in
woke the aid of the state authorities
to set aside q week for general house
cleaning all over the commonwealth,
but it was decided that it was the bus
mess Of each municipality to take
care of its own washing, and so the
mayor of every city that has mayor,
has been asked to start the PROPOSE
ton in its own belliwick, and leave it
to the Governor to proclaim day for
general thanksgiving when the clean
ing is done.
The State Board of Health not only
heartily favors the plan and urges
that every city shall set aside this
particular week for this particular
work, but it also seriously endorses
the intention of the womens' clubs
throughout Florida, to make cleanup
week not an annual, but a sen1i-annual
institution, fixing such a period for
brushing up" every spring and ev-
cry autumn.
In the days and years that are
gone, individual cities and towns in
Florida have had occasional spasms
of cleanliness, which have had splen-
did advertising value at least. But
such efforts have been spasl1odic and
with few exceptions these have not
been permanently recurring. Now
that the women by organized effort
have undertaken to spread the prac-
tice, there is little doubt that it will
become permanent, regular, efficient
and if immense value to the state.
More than this, it will make Florida
among the first, if not the first state
in the Union, to have all its cities
swept and guarnished regularly and
often.
But cleanup week means more than
a popular effort to remove trash from
the streets and alleys. For, after all,
loose dirt that is carried and scatter
ed by every wind that blows, however
disagrceabIe it may be, is not tho most
serious menace to health that is to
be found in every city, whether in
Il, ,4.@
things that don't show, the things you
have to hunt for, that do the real
harm. And in the thorough cleaning
that the women will probably insist
on week after next, will be the filing
up or draining Of water holes, the
breeding places for mosquitoes, the
mending Of broken sewers that don't
do thei. duty, the screening Of hereto
rfore uuscrcencd earth closets which
breed flies and death. 1t will mean
the removal or the repairing of un-
sanitary home surroundings which
inc"c2se the sick rate.
Possibly it will secure what most
city councils refuse to enforce by
alainance-the careful screening Of
refuse from livcrey and other stables,
which left uncovered releases it's
myri2ds of manure-bred flies, the
carriers Of several highly fatal dis
eases.
Many, perhaps most, of the unsani-
.ajy neighborhood nuisanCes are
maintained on their own premises by
Individual home-keepers. If the evil
|lgsu.ts could be confined to these
hou+eholders, the punishment would
he sept and inflicted where it belongs,
hut unfortunately these results are
carried to the unoffcnding neighbors.
If the women of Florida can dis
cover 4 method for abating such
nuisanccs, for compelling offenders to
cease their shining, if they will arouse
and make effective a public sentiment
for letter municipal sanitation in
Florida, they will accomplish more
for tie lasting good Of the state than
the votes of their fathers and broth
ers and husbands have been able to
bring about up to this time. And it
ha, been generally observed that the
womens' clubs in Florida usually fin.
ish what they start-State Board Of
Health Bulletin,