OCR Text |
Show j can be eliminated, as it is for a person with a contagious disease to expose others to the danger of the same malady. It is esential that all cooperation possible should be given to the agencies which are spreading the gospel cf fire prver.tion. WHY NO FIRE PREVENTION? In the days of mooke and ladder companies and hand bucket to put out fires, little thought was giverj to fire prevention. Hot to . put the fire out seemed to be the main consideration. The same state of mined existed in regard to contagious diseases, such as the plague, yellow fever, typhoid, diptheria, the hook worm and the malaria. For hundreds of years the only thought seemed to be the possibility of curing persons after the disease had a foothold instead of trying to prevent the disease from ever starting. Today the diseases mentioned have been practically liminated by scientific preventative measures and through educational work advising the public how to control them. So far as fires are concerned, however, our nation has staggered along blindly under its enormous annual fire loss with resulting death toll, seemingly as indifferent of fire prevention measures as it was when the first crude fire fighting apparatus1 was in use. We simply have not awaken to the fact that death) and property loss from fire can be eliminated just as death and property loss resulting from contagious diseases have been eliminated by scientific study and treatment. The National Board of Fire Underwriters and the Underwriters Laboratories, in Chicage, have been pioneering in the campaign of public education on fire prevention. The seeds thy have planted are taking1 root. Manufacturing concerns see the wisdom of laboratory labor-atory tests of their products which tend to safeguard the public in their use. Retail establishments see the value of handling scientifically scientif-ically tested products and the buying public is awakening to the advantage ad-vantage of buying products which have been tested as to their fire resisting or fire preventing qualities. .Some day the nation is going to awaken to the fact that it is just as criminally negligent for any person to maantain a fire hazard which |