To establish an independent health service : speech of Hon. John D. Works ... in the Senate of the United States, Monday and Tuesday, April 29 and 30, 1912.

  • Works, John D. (John Downey), 1847-1928.
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: To establish an independent health service : speech of Hon. John D. Works ... in the Senate of the United States, Monday and Tuesday, April 29 and 30, 1912. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    the realm of the Czar of all the Russias. It is the natural result of the modern trend of concentration, subordinating private judgment to the leaders' dictum. Wc see the same result in the various State organizations. As in the national association, so in the State societies, the thoughts of the mem- bers are cribbed, cabined, and confined. If anyone so far forgets him- self as to dissent from the established order, he is made to feel the sting of disapproval, until he is glad to hide himself and his views from the gaze of his associates. The machine is well oiled and the steam roller runs smoothly. Mem- bers are extremely careful to avoid being run over. Hence, whatever is, is right. At a meeting of the State Medical Association of Wisconsin held in June, 1911, and reported in the Wisconsin Medical Journal for the same month, Dr. A. R. Craig, assistant to the secretary of the American Medical Association, described the evolution of that body as follows: The whole subject of the work of the organization has been to me a wonderfully interesting thing. In studying this subject I have been interested to find how few men really had a suspicion of what the possibilities of a real organization were. If you read the history of the American Medical Association, you will find that in the old days a delightful lot of gentlemen would meet together and promulgate and expound and resolve and adjourn ; and in another year they would come together once more in a new field and again orate and expound and resolve and adjourn. So the American Medical Association went on for some 40 or 50 years of its growth. True, it was gathering new forms and new impetus and was doing something, but you could prac- tically see nothing of the work that was accomplished except a pleasant time was had at each annual session. Then came that wonderful epoch in the association's life when things began to happen after a year or two, and the American Medical Association met once a year, but lived through the year. To-day, if you were to go to Chicago you would find on the corner of Dearborn and Indiana Avenue a 7-story structure with some 150 employees, your employees, working every day in the year to accomplish your ends under your delegated direction, to accom- plish the purposes and ends of that organization. I would like to say that this organization will be completed and will be really effective when each State in its turn is organized in such a way that you do not meet for a week's session or a three or four days' session, but you meet as a board of bank directors might meet, to determine the policy of the machine which is to be effective throughout the.year. These various quotations show that it is not the public that Is demanding this legislation, but a political machine, an oli- garchy of a few doctors in control of the American Medical Asso- ciation, and who have so far become intoxicated with their success as to forget discretion. As an illustration, let me quote to you the statement of Dr. Charles A. L. Reed in a speech de- livered at Chicago and widely quoted in medical journals: When a committee of the American Medical Association went to the Fifty-eighth Congress, their legislative committee said, Can't you boil down what you have to say into 20 minutes? There were in that Congress one doctor in the Senate and none in the House. In the Fifty-ninth Congress there were three doctors in the House and one in the Senate. The doctors all over the country had been using their influence, so the committee said. .lust tell us what you want, gentlemen : take as much time as you like. In the Sixtieth Congress there were five doctors, all told, and be- cause of the same influence we simply went to the Willard Hotel and sent for Congressmen to come to us, and they came. * * * In the next Congress I have every reason to believe there will be 25 physicians. WHY SHOULD CONGRESS INTRUST THEM WITH THIS GREAT POWER? Mr. President, there is no complaint now of the inefficiency or lack of power or authority on the part of the various health bureaus now in existence and supported by the National Gov- ernment. The Public Health and National Quarantine Bureau is given ample and sufficient power to deal with all such ques- tions. No new legislation on the subject is necessary. Even the 41917—10969