Atlanta Daily World

Cancer Crusade Slated In Area

The sound of ringing doorbells has signalled the start of the 1961 Crusade of the American Cancer Society in Atlanta and Fulton County.

Volunteers of the American Cancer Society will call on homes of friends and neighbors to distribute educational leaflets which could save their lives, according to Mrs. R. L. Chennault, chairman of the Negro Division for the Cancer Crusade.

"I hope every door in the community will be open to welcome our Crusaders between now and end of this month," Mrs. Chennault said. "If everyone followed the advice contained in the leaflet to be left in each home, more than 85,000 lives could be saved. This is the number of men, women and children who die of cancer in the United States each year but who could have been saved by heeding the simple advice stressed in the American Cancer Society's educational program."

Mrs. Chennault said the best protection against cancer was to have annual health checkups and to get speedy medical attention at the earliest sign or suspicion of any of cancer's seven danger signals.

FUNDS NEEDED

Pointing out that at least one-half of all those who get cancer could be cured through early detection and proper treatment, Mrs. Chennault said that the American Cancer Society could make this goal a reality if it had enough funds to do the job. "The Society was mainly responsible," she said, "for the dramatic rise in the cancer cure rate. Twenty years ago only one out of seven who developed cancer was saved; today it is one out of three. With adequate public support and personal action it could be one out of two."

Money raised in the Crusade will not only be used to step up educational programs, but to provide service for cancer patients and to support research of scientists who are working unceasingly for a cancer cure or preventive. Progress in cancer research can only go as fast as funds are available.

Mrs. Chennault announced on the eve of the Crusade that more than three thousand volunteers are going into action in Atlanta and Fulton County. "We aim to raise a substantial part of the $270,000 quota for Fulton County and we expect to very soon," Mrs. Chennault concluded.