ABOLISH ALL COMPULSORY VACCINATION IN ARMY AND NAVY AND APPOINT DOCTORS OF VARIOUS SCHOOLS ON ALL MEDICAL AND HEALTH BOARDS
In the same way this dogmatic and dominant part or sect of the medical profession, organized in powerful medical societies and now controlling important public offices, has forced the dangerous practice of general compulsory vaccination upon our Army and Navy, and this practice is, I believe, largely the result of having only one school of medicine—the vaccine school—represented on our Medical Boards and in our Departments of Health and Vital Statistics. To thus have only one school of medicine represented on our Medical Boards of Army and Navy is, I submit, as great a mistake, as unjust, absurd, and un-American, as it would be to have only one school of Religion represented in our Army and Navy chaplains. For, surely, medical tolerance and freedom is as important for national welfare as religious tolerance and freedom. And to this particular point, Mr. President, I would, therefore, now like to ask your first and most careful attention, with the suggestion and hope that, as supreme commander of both arms of the service, you will not only find it just, wise, and proper to abolish all compulsory vaccination in Army and Navy and leave vaccination entirely voluntary with each man, as it now is in the English Army, but that you will also abolish all arrogant monopoly or control of medical practice in Army and Navy by any one school of medicine, and will adopt the reform in the future of having various schools of medicine properly and justly represented on our Medical Boards, from which reform, I believe, a great improvement in medical practice and in public right, health, and comfort is sure to result.