The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1920-02-04

are becoming steadily less friendly to
exploiting capital, but thew arc not
shutting the doors to the man who
wants q home. Mexico, for example,
If the present government had it's way
would make it nearly impossible for
large capital to exploit Mexican re-
sources, but it would not make it i'm
possible or even difficult for man to
get farm and establish a home. Some
thing of the same tendency may be
noted in other caribbean countries. In
all of these countries political condi-
tlons arc pretty sure to be stabilized
III the relatively near future and
there is some reason to believe that
they will be stabilized in way more
acceptable to the little man looking
for home than to the big man look
ing for a fortune.
1t should be said at once that there
is much evidence against the tropics
as place for white men to live. The
white man who goes to the tropics to
live without very carefully consider
ing the conditions he is to face and
how he may best guard against them
is very likely to meet with disaster.
And he should be still more circum-
spcct about taking his wife end chill
dren to the Southern countries.
1t uscdw to be the we'll recognized
tropical diseases that kept white men
away from the equatorial wealth. Vel
low fever and malaria long closed
many tropical countries to Europeans.
They defeated the French in Panama.
Then Colonel Gorgas went down there
and showed that yellow fever and ma
laria could be defeated, too. He wrote
a book in which he prophcsicd that the
tropics, freed Of these diseases, would
become the bread basket of the world
But 1T soon became apparent that
the problem was not so simple. The
British in India had also done much to
ward conqucring tropical disease, but
they had found that even when free
from specific disease, it was hard to
raise children in tropical India Those
stationed in the hottest parts of IN
dia found that unless they sent their
children back to England before they
were seven years of age, the children
often died, and still more often grew
up to nervous wrecks. 1t has been
said by some authorities and denied by
others that there is no third genera
tion Of Englishmcn in India. In other
words man may 90 to tropical
country and lead fairly healthy life
there but his children may show the
bad effects of the environment, and
their children, if there are any, may
show them still more. Some authori-
ties say that very often white people
born in the tropics do not have any
children. This is ascribcd by some OBJ
servers to the action Of the ultra
violctray, to which the brilliant sun
shine of the tropics greatly exposes a
man. White men are native to a eli.
mate in which the sun shines less than
half the time, and even then is often
partly vcilcd by mist or cloud. Con
tinual exposure to thcultra-vioct or
actinc ray is unnatural to him, Just
as continual exposure to thc'X-ray is
intolcrable to any human being. 1t is
interesting to note that many men
VINO have worked with the x-ray with
out adequate protection have been
thereby rendered sterile.
Whether the effect is due wholly or
even mainly to the actinic ray or not
it has been pretty well established by
experience that continuous life in
equatorial countries is bad for the
white man. No white man should go
to such country unless he is assured
of ample vacations in more northerly
lands. He should be especially careful
about accepting work in tropical coun
tries which exposes him much to the
sun.
But while parts of the tropics are
probably uninhabitablc to the white
man, and white continuous life there
may be dangerous for him there are
various mitigating conditions to be
considered. The actinic ray may de-
stroy the nervous system, if the cx-
posure is long enough, but in small
doses it is evidently stimulus. Every
one who has taken winter vaca-
tion trip to the tropics is aware Of