8 - Proceedings of Ninth Annuae Meeting 



bringing literally millions of new capital into the county, and the 

 workers can come and go in peace and comfort unmolested by 

 the pest, safe from disease infection. 



Since it has become known that Hudson County has been suc- 

 cessful in mosquito extermination, strangers have been added to 

 our population so rapidly that it has been almost impossible to 

 house them. These newcomers are not confined to any one dis- 

 trict, thousands are in parts of the county not served by the 

 Hudson Tubes. To take care of this increase of population at- 

 tracted by the mosquitoless conditions some five million dollars 

 were spent in newly-built housings in 1921, thus adding that large 

 sum to the permanent wealth of the county. 



In all directions radiating from Summit Station, the property 

 valuations have largely increased, properties doubling, trebling 

 and in many cases more than quadrupling in value. This means 

 increased assessments. These increases have nearly all occurred 

 since the effective work of the Hudson County Commission has 

 been a fixed fact, and has added literally millions of dollars to 

 the total wealth of the county. The amount of the increased 

 income to the county due to the increased valuations runs into 

 hundreds of thousands of dollars. The small cost of the work 

 so productive of wealth seems almost microscopic. 



The tubes bring the people here physically, but what brought 

 them to make their homes here is a mosquitoless Hudson County. 

 If any one thinks that it is the tubes alone that brought this great 

 increase of population, he must remember that the tubes were in 

 operation for five or six years before this movement of residents 

 to Hudson County started, and the strangers came there long 

 after the tubes were running in full operation. 



If the work of this commission should cease, you would find 

 inside of a year hundreds of empty apartments along the Boule- 

 vard, Bergen Avenue and other streets where the new people are. 

 People will not live any longer in mosquito-ridden places if they 

 can get out of them, for it is now considered as uncivilized to 

 have the mosquito menace as it is to have any other uncivilized 

 or unsanitary condition. 



The Department of Conservation and Development of New 

 Jersey estimates an increase of five hundred million dollars would 

 be added to New Jersey industrial values in the next twenty years 

 if mosquitoes were eliminated. This, from what we have seen, 

 seems rather an underestimate than over. You have seen that 

 the mosquito caused a loss by sickness in 19 14 of $231,000.00 to 

 the permanent wealth of the state by the malarial illness of 771 



