Evening star., 1940-12-22
InexcusubIe Delay


Public health is purchasable; with
In natural limitations community
can determine its own death rate"
has been accepted as truth by public
health experts for many years.
Other public officials are more
difficult to convince. The dismal ex
perience of Health Officer Rutland
in failing to obtain even site for
greatly needed public health center
for Northwest Washington indicates
an almost inconceivable lack of ap-
probation of the need at the District
Building, and what seems to be a
general lack of interest and absence
of coordination between the agen-
cies which long ago should have
combined their efforts to make the
site available.
AS a matter of principle, the Park
and Planning Commission may have
been correct in turning down, for
the second time, Dr.. Ruhland's re-
quest that small triangle at New
York avenue and First street NV.
be transferred to the District as the
site for health center. 1t is readily
granted that, once begun, there is
danger in converting downtown park
areas to other uses. But it is hard
to reconcile the L'Enfant plan, which
the commission cited in refusing the
request, with the crowded, ugly little
playground for which the park
triangle in question now is used.
And, as between its use an an made
quate school playground and as the
site for health center, the latter
has much to commend it. especially
now that site for the Midcity Play
ground has been acquired not far
away.
The refusal of the planning COM
mission, however, is in other respects
significant. Why in the first place,
should DR.. Rutland be forced to
come begging for park land-even
such a poor specimen of park land
as this small triangle-as the site
for a necessary health center? Why
has it been, in the past three or four
years, that one after another of his
requests for a site has met refusal
in one form or another? Why is
there not money enough for the
acquisition of a health center in the
same general area in which substan-
tial sums are being spent for more
recreational space?
The difficulty lies in the fact that
the schools, the parks, the highways
and some other municipal functions
have been permitted to eclipse public
health needs in the scramble for
public funds No one at the District
Building, outside the Health Depart
ment, has been interested enough to
take the sort of leadership necessary
to give the Health Department its
due in the division of limited appro-
priations.
The new Southwest Washington
Health Center, just dedicated this
week, is the first of three such estab-
lishments recommended so strongly
by the United States Public Health
Service after it's 1878 survey of
health conditions in Washington. It's
completion should have conceded
with the beginning, at least, of the
two other centers. But its compile
ton finds nothing being done,
either in Northwest Washington or
in the Benning area, the proposed
locations of the second and third CEN
ters, either in acquiring land or con-
struction funds.
The Commissioners should now
end situation which has found DR..
Rutland appealing in vain to the
various agencies which could make
proper sites available and work for
the acquisition of site and the
necessary appropriations for
building for the northwest center
And while the L'Enfant Plan should,
Of course, be preserved in the de-
velopment of Washington, neither
the L'Enfant nor any other plan was
devised to shield disease and rene
diable suffering behind screen of
marks