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Show I! Jn An Obser H 7HBN your visiting friends talk p ' V about their experiences with the B "flu" you feel like the soldiers who M tried to get to France and didn't. M These folk who battled with and B defeated the "flu" are as upstartish B as the boys who went "over there" and i, squelched the Hun. j' The "flu" veterans converse with B their fellow victims as arrogantly as M our heroes talk with one another about B. the wounds they acquired at Chateau Bi Thierry, St. Mihiel and in the mazes K of the Argonne, B1 I Suppose that some day soon the M victims will form a society which will B blazon itself impudently as the "Veteran! "Veter-an! ans of the Influenza Epidemic." Their jl insignia will be an atomizer quartered Kj with a Spanish onion rampant. They Bj will have passwords and grips, but, of fli course, will spell grip "g-r-i-p-p-e." B How humble one feels nowadays B when the "flu" spellbinders orate B about their symtoms and tell in whis-fli, whis-fli, pers how they were just beginning to Bf turn black. However, none of them Bj will admit that they were in reality m dead from the neck up and have not B recovered. B It was an excellent idea to quaran- H tine those- who had the "flu," but B those who had it and recovered should B either be quarantined or muzzled. If B I had my way I would apply both B cures. Not that I have anything B against one who has had the "flue." B It is simply that these "flu" graduates B seem to have somet' 'ig against all i the rest of us. H B Pdrhaps wo should not speak in such B blithesome tones of the "flu." Perhaps B we should bo as serious about it as B are some of our neighbors who have H had it. B Very well, then, let us talk of the B "flu" gravely. B Here is a plain, unvarnished tale, B thoughi here and1 there, it may be sat- B urated with Dobell's mixture. B I presume you know that San Fran- B cisco conquered the epidemic in rec- B ord time. Health officers will please B be quiet, so that I can make myself B heard. B I st'ill 'maintain that San Francisco B broke the record. I am not condemn- B ing anybody, hut I insist on being B heard to the end. Then if anyone has B a word to say in reply I am willing B that he should hire a hall. B M Dr. Hassler is chief of ithe Btatq BB alth bureau In San Franoisco. . He vation Plane is a persistent person who keeps nagging nag-ging at folk until they do as he tells them. If they are belligerent he puts them in jail. Dr. Hassler was a champion of the gauze mask and the strict quarantine, but, above all, he favored the masks. He demanded that the city supervisors supervi-sors pass a law to make the wearing of gauze masks compulsory. The sol-ons sol-ons acquiesced promptly, but there is a charter requirement which says that an ordinance cannot go into effect until un-til five days after its passage. As we all know, the bacillus of influenza can massacre scores and hundreds in five days if given his way. The authorities decided that for the benefit of society they would conceal the real facts about the charter as long as possible and instruct the police to enforce the wearing of masks. It was a bluff and the truth became widely known in a few hours. But the police used threats and persuasions. They stopped maskless folk men and women on the street and sternly told them to don masks or go to jail. On the second day about fifty per cent were wearing masks. On the fourth day perhaps seventy per cent had joined the masked army. iOn the fifth day the record was to be 100 per cent. The San Franciscans did not do quite that well, but it was marvellous how splendidly they heeded heed-ed the new law. Even the Christian Scientists took the position that they should wear masks because it was the law and because they could see no benefit in creating public disturbances. disturb-ances. Every man, woman and child who walked the streets of San Francisco Fran-cisco appeared to be masked for nearly near-ly a month. Sometimes a man would rush from his home with his breakfast half eaten and his mask still pinned to the bathroom window after its bath of disinfectant. Usually he discovered his terrible error before he had climbed into his auto or boarded a street car. But not infrequently he awoke only when a frowning blue-coat blue-coat held him up in the downtown somewhere and shocked him with a dire threat of arrest or actual arrest. During the first few days that the ordinance was in effect the police, operating op-erating in squads, rounded up many maskless ones early in the morning,, packed them into police autos and whisked them away to jail. Finea were imposed and even jail sentences when it appeared that the law was being stubbornly defied. In a word, the mask law wasen-forced wasen-forced to the limit. Also the quarantine. quaran-tine. On the day the mask ordinance became be-came a law there wore about 1400 new cases, if my memory serves me aright. The next day there were still about that number. On the third day there was a slump of several hundred. On the fourth day there was another drop of 200, and the decline continued in about that ratio for a week or so. In less than a month the influenza epidemic was declared officially at an end. Only ten or fifteen new cases were being reported a day. Of course, there was much disputation. disputa-tion. The devotees of mental healing were wont to say that the masks simply sim-ply had the effect of eliminating fear and that, fear being absent, sickness must necessarily be absent. One editor edi-tor wrote awesome articles headed like this: "Fear and Disease, No. 1." He meant thereby that he would soon put the trumpet of advice to his lips and blow blast "No. 2." By the time the epidemic was vanquished he had got up to "Fear and Disease, No. 13." Dr. Hassler did not close the department depart-ment stores or other shops, but he did shut the theaters, stop all cabaret performances and public meetings and prevent the churches from holding indoor in-door services. A number of the churches held services in the open air. It was a dismal month. There were not enough ambulances to handle the situation adequately and the expedient was adopted of driving them through the streets at appalling speed while the horns wailed balefully. In this way several pedestrians were run down and killed before the authorities intervened. The din of the ambulances gave arning that Plague and his comrade, Death, were always at our elbows. I am reminded that I began this article ar-ticle in a lightsome vein. We are told that when the "Black Death" swooped down upon the cities of Italy in the middle ages the people sought to forget for-get the horrors by resortiLg to levity and frivolity. Cheerfulness has its advantages ad-vantages in fighting Plague and Death. Have you observed what a splendid newspaper James P. Casey and his associates have been producing each day since they took charge of the Herald? Her-ald? It does not need the eye of an expert ex-pert to see how greatly they are achie ing. Every morning the Herald has a gripping appearance. The makeup and the headlines are always attractive, the editorials are excellent and the news is "played" in just that fashion which brings out its salient features most conspicuously. At its present rate of progress the Herald should soon be among the first in all the country. And speaking of Salt Lake newspaper news-paper men, Miles Overholt, formerly mnaging editor of the Salt Lake Telegram, Tel-egram, is editor of a new weekly In Los Angeles, oddly named ":It." In every sense "It" is a weekly of variety va-riety and charm ah lough it has as i its specialty photoplay art. A week- , ly journal of this character should win instant favor in Los Angeles, especially as it is edited by such an able and accomplished newspaper man. . |