The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-01-27
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau
FREDERIC j. HAsKIN. Director.
Washington, D. @.

FREDERIC y. HAShfNs director.
Washington, D. @.
WHITE MEN IN THE TROPICS.
Washington, D. c., Jan. 24.-Can
the white man live in the tropics?
Can he raise his children there with
out detriment to their health and that
of s-.cceeding generations?
This is one of the important ques-
tons which Will probably be consid-
cred by a congress of distinguished
scientists in Hawaii next summer, ac-
cording to Alexander Hume Ford,
head of the Pan-Pacific union with
hea dquarters in Honolulu. He is now
in the United States arranging for the
scientific conference. 1t will prob
ably be organized by Prof H. E. Greg
DRY of Yale, who will be given an ap-
preparation of ten thousand dollars
for mthe purpose of calling together
about forty scientists qualified to
study and discuss the problems con-
fronting the lands which border upon
the Pacific.
Altho a great deal has been said and
written on the subject of the white
mans health in tropical lands. it has
never been determined exactly what
effects. good or bad, the tropical eli
mate has on the man with a light
skin, nor to what those effects are
due nor how they may be guarded
against. And the question is becom-
ing a more important one every day,
because the man who wants to own
land and esta blish himself in a new
country is looking more and more to
the tropics. Take the situation in this
country. Our own west no longer Of
fers to the homeseeker any consider
able bodies of free or cheap agricul-
tural lands. On the other hand in
Central and South America, in Mex
tn ~ .oJ1 feid 1dC q ,
there is vast undeve1oped wealth of
the very kind that drew adventurous
men to the west fifty years ago-rich
land that has never been plowed. I'M
discovered mineral wealth, virgin
forests.
Americans have been going to these
countries as statesmen, promoters. and
especially as investors of capital seek
ing concessions, for a great many
years. But they have not been going
as home seekers. In the first place,
unsettled political conditions have
they have feared the climate and the
tropical diseases.
Now the countries to the south of
US are becoming steadily less friendly
to exploiting capital, but they are not
shutting the doors to the man who
wants a home. Mexico, for example,
if the present government had its 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 q man
to get a farm and establish q. home.
Something of the same tendency may
be noted in other caribbean countries.
In all of these countries political con-
ditions are pretty sure to be stab1l-
lied in the relatively near future, and
there is some reason to believe that
they will be stabilized in a way more
acceptable to the little man looking
for a 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 stil1 more circun-
spect about taking his wife and chill
dren to the southern countries.
It used to be the well-reccgnized
tropical diseases that kept white men
away from the equatorial wealth.
Yellow 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 prophesied
that the tropics, freed of these dis
eases, would become the bread basket
of the world.
But it soon became apparent that
the problem was not so simple. The
British in India had slso done much
toward conquering tropical disease. but
they found that even when free from
specific disease. it was hard to raise
children in tropical India. Those sta
finnad IN hnftoGf ~ India
found that unless they sent their chill
dren back to England before they
were seven years of age, the children
| often died, and still more often grew
up to be nervous wrecks. It has been
! said by some authorities and denied
| by others that there is no third gen.
Grafton of Englishmen in, India In
other words a man may go to a
| tropical country and lead a fairly
| healthy life there. but his childi en-
may show the bad effects OF the en-
vironment, and their children, if there
are any, may show them still more
Some authorities say that very often
white people born in the tropics dc
not have any children. This is ascribed
by some observers to the action of the
ultraviolet ray, to which the brilliant
sunshine of the tropics 81 eatly exposes
| a man. White men are native to g
climate in which the sun shines les
than half the time, and even then il
often partly yelled by mist or cloud
Continual exposure to the ultra-viole
or actinic ray is unnatural to him, JUS
as continual exposure to the N-ray i:
lintolerable to any human being. 1t i.
interesting to note that many men wht
have worked with the X-ray withou
adequate protection have been thereb,
rendered sterile.
Whether the effect is due wholly D
even mainly to the actinic ray or not
it has been pretty well established b.
experience that continuous life il
Observation-Disclosures
The George n
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