Henry Baird Favill, AB, MD, LL.D., 1860-1916, a ... - University Library

HENRY BAIRD FAVILL
Delivered, State Campaign for the Prevention of Tuberculosis, Trenton,
N. J., October 21, 1909.
Printed, special report.
UPON WHAT GROUND MAY THE STATE ASSUME
THE DIRECTION OF PUBLIC HEALTH?
OF course I am gratified to be permitted to participate
in an occasion of this sort. I am gratified to be
enabled to give the sHghtest word of recognition and
appreciation and admiration to those who have labored as
volunteers in the creation of this public work as far as it
has gone.
I should be a little bit embarrassed, perhaps, to come
here from a State that had not crossed the threshold of
this subject to talk to the people of the State which had
penetrated much farther into the subject; but, after all, it
is a common cause, and whether one is farther ahead than
the other is of little moment. From another point of view
I am on more familiar ground. I am on the ground which
is being agitated by the question whether the public, that
is to say, whether the organized forces of the State, shall
take over the activities of the tuberculosis campaign, or
whether it shall remain, as hitherto, in the hands of the highly
competent, but nevertheless private, individuals who have
carried it on ; and it is upon this phase of the subject which
I shall speak, and I shall confine myself as near as may be
to this question.
It is quite unnecessary to argue that any enterprise
in this country, social or philanthropic or commercial, is
necessarily a governmental function. We know better
than that. When one stops to regard the efficiency, the
enthusiasm, the unselfishness, that goes into the voluntary
work directed in this warfare against tuberculosis, one
knows that private individuals and groups of individuals
can manage, finance, and execute, to the highest degree of