CRUEL AND UNUSUAL, EXCESSIVE AND UNREASONABLE PUNISHMENTS ARE UNCONSTITUTIONAL. MORAL AND MEDICAL MONSTROSITY OF LONG TERMS OF IMPRISONMENT FOR REFUSING VACCINATION
At this point I would like to call your careful attention to a news item which appeared in the New York Times of May 2, 1918, as follows:
“Refused Vaccination, Got Fifteen Years.
“Camp Dodge, Iowa, May 1.—Elmer N. Olson, of Goodrich, Minn., a soldier in training here, refused to submit to vaccination. He was tried by general court-martial and sentenced to fifteen years in the disciplinary barracks at Fort Leavenworth.”
This is only one of many similar items which have appeared in the press for the last two years, showing that it has been a practice in the army to try soldiers by court-martial for refusing to be vaccinated against free will and consent; and to degrade them from honorable military service merely for this refusal, and condemn them to long terms of imprisonment such as are given only to dangerous and felonious criminals under the criminal law,—and it is shown in this item that the extraordinary punishment of fifteen years’ imprisonment was thus inflicted for the sole offense of refusing compulsory vaccination! It may be that in some cases other offenses besides mere refusal to be vaccinated were involved, but I understand from several news items that only the act of refusal to submit to forced vaccination was involved in many such condemnations.
In answer to a special request for information on this point, I have been informed by the office of the Judge Advocate General, in a letter dated January 14, 1919, that there was only one instance of court-martial for refusing to be vaccinated in the years 1917 and 1918, that this was held to be a violation of the 96th Article of War, and that the offender in this case was sentenced to be “Dishonorably discharged from the service, to forfeit all pay and allowances due or to become due, and to be confined at hard labor at such place as the convening authority may direct for twenty-five years.”
Now I respectfully submit, Mr. President, that whether there were one or many cases of this kind, they were clearly cases of “cruel and unusual” and excessive and unreasonable punishment and also an “unreasonable search and seizure of the person,” condemned in the Constitution in Articles IV and VIII of the Amendments, as follows:
Article IV. “The right of the people to be secure in their persons ... against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated.”
Article VIII. “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”
I therefore think it is perfectly obvious that to thus degrade a loyal and honorable soldier and condemn him like a felonious criminal to the long term of fifteen or twenty-five years’ imprisonment, merely for the act of refusing to have a dangerous medical operation and an inflicted disease forced upon his body against his will and consent, is clearly an “unreasonable seizure” of the person and a “cruel and unusual” and excessive and unreasonable punishment prohibited in the Constitution; and I think that no further argument is necessary to prove this point. Surely to inflict such drastic punishments as above shown—not for any really criminal, immoral, or perfidious act—not for anything that really affects the purely military duties, qualities, or services of any loyal, honorable and healthy soldier—but simply for opposing a dangerous medical dogma and defending his body against an inflicted disease and a dangerous medical operation which frequently sickens and unfits the soldier for a long time afterwards for military service and sometimes actually kills—as already clearly proved—surely, I say, such a punishment is not only legally unconstitutional, but is morally barbarous in both a true military and true medical sense, and should be abolished in both Army and Navy for the several reasons herein submitted.