The Punta Gorda herald. [volume] (Punta Gorda, Fla.) 1893-1958, 1916-06-22

have united in a great publicity
campaign to advertise Florida. IL
brought such splendid results
that it is likely that double the
cost will be put into a similar
campaign during the coming
twelve months. It's object was to
spread truthful information a
bout the resources of the state all
over the land. 1t invited cores
lpondence for additional informa-
ton regarding particular local.
ties and inquiries came by the
thousands.
| One, and only one, important
criticism may be made on the adj
vertising that appeared in many
of the leading periodicals in the
North,-it was that the matter Of
Florida s healthfulness was not
emphasized, hardly mentioned
| Not a shot was taken at the most
important of the charges that are
voiced against the attractiveness
OF the state. Yet the healthful-
ness of any state or locality is the
first consideration in the mind of
the homseeker who has intclli-
gence enough to make him a de-
slrablc citizen. 1t is because
without health and the conditions
that conserve health, all other re-
sources lose most of their value.
A sick man with a dependent,
sick family is not an asset-mere-
ly charge on the community.
And if Florida, like any other
community, rich in natural re-
sources, is to come to its rightful
greatness, it must be because
Florida is a section where men
and women and children can live
IN comfort the year round in con-
dltlons that nature has provided
and that man has adapted to his
own uses. And this material de-
velopment will come when the
rest of the world is convinced of
the fact. It's up to the people of
Florida to do the convincing.
The State Board of Health has
rescued Florida from periodical
epidemics of yellow fever, which
used to menace the state from
June to October of each year Its
warnings have aided largely in
shutting out the bubonic plague
that ravaged neighboring state.
1t has reduced typhoid fever and
the intestinal diseases which are
supposed to be particularly at
home in warm climates, to the
normal of the most healthful com
munities. 1t has put the sick and
death rates of its cities and of
the state at large on a par with
those of the cooler parts of the
country, lower than most of them.
1t has accomplished these things
largely through a consistent and
persistent campaign of educating
the people of the state, which has
given them an intelligence on
sanitary matters quite the equal
of that of the residents of any 9TH
er state.
Now it is the right of every
Floridian to be proud of the eli
matte conditions of his state, even
though he may not be responsible
for them. 1t is even more his
right to be proud of the advan-
tages that have been taken of
such conditions to maintain and
improve the sanitary and health
conditions in which he lives. Tt
is his duty to cooperate with the
State Board of Health and with
his neighbors to preserve these
conditions, and it is his duty and
his privilege to advertise the
state by publishing these facts to
all creation, to tell the world that
it may come here and make its
home in surroundings that are
not surpassed and that are equal
ed in only few other places on
earth; that nowhere else do ply
steal exertion and invested capi-
tai give larger returns, and that
nowhere else may it work with
greater surety of ample reward
through the certainty of normal
healthful working conditions
State Board of Health.
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