"Business Interests" and Yellow Fever
Epidemics are, nevertheless, in the early stages, often misreported. If they were not—if early knowledge of threatening conditions were made public—the epidemics would seldom reach formidable proportions. But—and here is the national hygienic failing—the first instinct is to conceal smallpox, typhoid, or any other disease that assumes epidemic form. Repeated observations of this tendency have deprived me of that knock-kneed reverence for Business Interests which is the glorious heritage of every true American. As a matter of fact, Business Interests when involved with hygienic affairs are always a malign influence, and usually an incredibly stupid one. It was so in New Orleans, where the leading commercial forces of the city, in secret meeting, called the health officer before them and brow-beat him into concealing the presence of yellow fever, lest other cities quarantine against their commerce. And "concealed" it was, until it had secured so firm a foothold that suppression was no longer practicable, and the city only averted a tremendously disastrous epidemic by the best-fought and most narrowly won battle ever waged in this country against an invading disease.
