22 N. J. Mosquito Extermination Association 



, Gorgas himself went into the work of ridding Havana of yellow 

 fever with a skepticism that he afterward admitted. As late as 

 1902 he stated that he had doubted the conclusion of Dr. Walter 

 Reed that yellow fever was caused only by mosquitoes. But 

 his own work proved a cure for his own skepticism; and when 

 Charles E. Magoon became Governor of the Canal Zone, he told 

 Colonel Gorgas that he wanted him to understand that all the 

 resources of the Canal Commission were behind him. With this 

 inspiriting assurance, Colonel Gorgas set about his task; and from 

 the day of its completion, he has stood out as the world's most 

 famous master of tropical sanitation. 



Yes, this is a story that should be retold to our people again and 

 again. 



What we need in New Jersey is a Governor with the hardihood 

 to give to our county commissions, the resources of the state to 

 hurry up this work to completion. Any careful analysis of the fig- 

 ures of expenditures however must show that the work is expensive. 

 But this should not detract from the fact that it will be successful, 

 and that it will.be worth far more to this state than it will cost. 

 It will remove from our state an evil that exists. It will arrest the 

 attention of our great metropolitan district to the advantage of set- 

 tlement here. It will invite industry to locate along the lines of our 

 transcontinental railways with factory towns everywhere ; and our 

 abandoned pine lands will awaken to a new birth of activity and 

 prosperity, and a new value will be set upon the ratables of the state 

 to the extent of an increase estimated at $500,000,000.00, perhaps 

 more. With this result in prospect, surely New Jersey should have 

 sufficient local pride to clean up her own door yard. 



We must have the people think of the mosquito as an unnecessary 

 nuisance and demand its extinction. Every child should be educated 

 to have an interest in its own comfort and its own health, and that 

 wherever it discovers a tin can with water in it, it should turn it 

 upside down. 



A more friendly intimacy must be established and held effectively 

 between this association and the personal members of the board of 

 freeholders, as they come and go, to secure their negative co-opera- 

 tion at least, in that they may not move for a revision of the manda- 

 tory features of the law; and the same intimacy should exist with 

 all members of the legislature, as also with the newspapers and 

 magazine editors, the public conveyors of good and of evil report. 



The eyes of the state must more effectively be focused upon this 



