From the Logan Banner of Logan, WV, comes this editorial dated August 28, 1925:

THE CLEAN TOWN

Cleanl cleaniness, it has been said, is next to Godliness. A dirty individual is neither clean spiritually nor mentally. Dirt makes for ruin physically, mentally, morally. This is as true of a town as an individual. The dirty town, the town full of rubbish, of untidy houses, of muddy streets, of unsanitary conditions, is non-progressive materially, morally, and educationally. Neither moral nor material advancement flourish in dirty, unkempt dwellings or in unkempt towns.

If any town or city is ambitious for advancement, or if even a few of its men and women are ready to devote their time and energy to the betterment of the community, the surest way to achieve success is to clean up, make back yards and front yards clean, make streets clean and keep them clean, encourage the people to stimulate a love for and a pride in their homes and in their towns, repair the tumble-down yard fences, paint up, make things as clean outside as they would be inside, and then that community will look up mentally, morally and materially.

No community which does not clean up and paint up, which does not do its best to have clean streets and clean yards, has any right to look up and face the world.

It might be said a dirty town makes a dirty people: a dirty people makes moral and material dirt and decay. It is the duty of all men and women to make their homes and their home towns just as clean and attractive and beautiful as possible. He who fails short in this respect falls short of his duty to God and Man. It matters not what else he may do.