The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1916-12-28
DOLLAR BLINDNESS
Board of Health Bulletin)

The shortest route to some mems
hearts is said to be through their
Istomachs. To others, possibly ma
jointly, it runs by way of their pockets.
The most efficient,-the only thor
oughly efficient, laborer, either with
mind or muscle, is the one who is in
the best physical condition, the most
healthful.
On these two generalties rests a
most important economic question
which has yet to be solved by many
large employers of labor in Florida;
although the solution is plain if not
easy. If the owners and operators of
big lumber plants, phosphate mining
operations, and other large industries,
could figure out their losses, annually
and regularly. from sickness among
their employees. they would be start
led, even shocked. Immediately re-
formation would start, the cause
would be hunted out and removed,
even though it would cost real money,
if the expense would be recognized as
a wise Investment Like new and
important machinery for the mill, 1t
would save the cost in few months,
possibly few weeks.
Many of the large mill plants in
Florida are surrounded by tenants &C.
|cupied by employers and owned by the
companies. Usually these housese
are built on simple and inexpensive
models, and there isn't much to them
but walls, roofs and windows. There
is no appeal to the aesthetic sense of
those who are compelled to occupy
them, no trimmings, not even close
fitting door and widow frames, and
rarely, if ever, screen.
Not many months since, a big cor
poration in Florida,-no matter what
part of the state, crowded with orders
and running day and night, was COM
PEELED to shut down its night shift be-
cause of the prevalence of malaria.
This amounted almost to an epidenmic
Conditions were favorable for the
breeding of the malarial mosquito.
The homes of the employees were
|unscreended, loose-jointed structures,
and the mosquito had magnificent op-
portunities which she Immediately
took advantage Of. Scores of cases
and some fatalities followed, and the
, entire force was demoralized. The
value to the mill owners Of lost time,
of lost productiveness, exceeded by
hundreds of per cent what it would
have cost to screen every employers
home and make it habitable. It was
pure economic loss caused by the
shortsightedness of the mill owner.
Men estimate the human machine at
vastly lower value than the polished
structure of steel and brass. They do
nothing to conserve the usefulness Of
flesh and blood, but the senselesse
thing Of metal is petted and cared for
like fifty thousand dollar resource.
There is a law on the statute books
of Florida that requires the screening
of surface closets as guard against
typhoid fever. Another enactment re-
quires that hotels and boarding houses
shall be screened against the fly and
mosquito, but it has not been worded
to protect the workers in big indus
. trial enterprises. Is there not bit Of
injustice here. Under such a condi-
ton the only chance for the workmen
in these mills is through the humani-
tartan instinct of the mill owner, or, IL
he is lacking in sympathy, it must be
through his pocketbook. Dollars are
more than souls, profits more impor-
tan than human life.