The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-11-23
FOrGOOd of the
 Community

0 Someone IS always after a fellow to give something Why don't they reverse the process once in a while and give to the oppressed giver?
 The more one gives the more they hang on to his coat-tails and the more they be- siege him with tags, with buttons, with flags and emblems The years assort- ment of this insignia, if pinned on the front of the man who gives to all, would make him shine more resplendent than John Phillip Sousa.
 But that is the fretful side of us; not the real The heart of us likes to give and the mind of us tells us to give for our own sake as we'll asthat of others.
 Barely had we digested the appeal for the Boy Scouts and the Boys Club when here come Mercy Home and the Red Cross Christmas seals. At the same time we are asked to contribute our little S3 to the American Cotton association to help out the farmer.
 But all these things have got to be done Birmingham especially must do it's full share, because Birmingham is the big throbbing central force of the state and
 
 name of her own pride and prestige.
 There are eighty little ones in Mercy Home. There is none to care for them but the money of the volunteer giver. It is not state-aided, nor city-aided. He who hesi- tates to donate there should ask himself if he as citizen is not better off for the saving to society of eighty boys and girls.
 In dollars and cents the salvage of the little ones is money in the pocket It costs communities less now to conduct the crim- inal end of it's business than it did several years ago. Where has this economy come from? In the salvage of human beings. Those who would have been costly dere- licts have been made producers.
 The Red Cross seals this Christmas stand for visiting nurses in the homes of people in every county in the state What does that mean? It means that entire families will be saved from the toll of the white plague; that one victim in family will not transmit the death germ to others until graves are filled with brothers and sisters.
 Tuberculosis has thrived on ignorance. 1t does so now. People do not know how to care for themselves in the first stages of the disease and stop it's ravages; they do not know how to protect the uncontam- mated from the contaminated. Visiting nurses in the homes of Alabamians will carry this knowledge. They save more lives than tens of thousands of expensive and, for the most part, useless treatments after the disease has gotten full sway.
 We city folks are benefited by what ever helps the farmers, because we de- pend on them to purchase that which we make in our factories We depend on the money from big crops for the pay rolls of our mines and mills. Trouble in the coun- try means smaller business done with the cities and less money in cities. He who joins the cotton association is investing S3 in his own behalf
 What if the sun got tired of serving the earth for just one day? There would not be man, beast, flower or a tree left.
 What about mankind if we locked our hearts and our intelligence against the : worthy appeals of our fellow? We would get back to the cave. life from which we emerged ages ago.
 Mercy Home and the Red Cross have 2