“I never said that I would, Mr. Strong,” I answered.
He looked at me curiously. “No, and you never said you wouldn’t. Now, doctor, let us come to an understanding about this, for here in Dunchester it’s worth more than all the other things put together. If this seat is to be won, it will be won on anti-vaccination. That’s our burning question, and that’s why you are being asked to stand, because you’ve studied the thing and are believed to be one of the few doctors who don’t bow the knee to Baal. So look here, let’s understand each other. If you have any doubts about this matter, say so, and we will have done with it, for, remember, once you are on the platform you’ve got to go the whole hog; none of your scientific finicking, but appeals to the people to rise up in their thousands and save their innocent children from being offered to the Moloch of vaccination, with enlarged photographs of nasty-looking cases, and the rest of it.”
I listened and shivered. The inquiry into rare cases of disease after vaccination had been interesting work, which, whatever deductions people might choose to draw, in fact committed me to nothing. But to become one of the ragged little regiment of medical dissenters, to swallow all the unscientific follies of the anti-vaccination agitators, to make myself responsible for and to promulgate their distorted figures and wild statements—ah! that was another thing. Must I appear upon platforms and denounce this wonderful discovery as the “law of useless infanticide”? Must I tell people that “smallpox is really a curative process and not the deadly scourge and pestilence that doctors pretend it to be”? Must I maintain “that vaccination never did, never does, and never can prevent even a single case of smallpox”? Must I hold it up as a “law (!) of devil worship and human sacrifice to idols”?
If I accepted Strong’s offer it seemed that I must do all these things: more, I must be false to my instincts, false to my training and profession, false to my scientific knowledge. I could not do it. And yet—when did a man in my position ever get such a chance as that which was offered to me this day? I was ready with my tongue and fond of public speaking; from boyhood it had been my desire to enter Parliament, where I knew well that I should show to some advantage. Now, without risk or expense to myself, an opportunity of gratifying this ambition was given to me. Indeed, if I succeeded in winning this city, which had always been a Tory stronghold, for the Radical party I should be a marked man from the beginning, and if my career was not one of assured prosperity the fault would be my own. Already in imagination I saw myself rich (for in this way or in that the money would come), a favourite of the people, a trusted minister of the Crown and perhaps—who could tell?—ennobled, living a life of dignity and repute, and at last leaving my honours and my fame to those who came after me.
On the other hand, if I refused this offer the chance would pass away from me, never to return again; it was probable even that I should lose Stephen Strong’s friendship and support, for he was not a man who liked his generosity to be slighted, moreover he would believe me unsound upon his favourite dogmas. In short, for ever abandoning my brilliant hopes I condemned myself to an experience of struggle as a doctor with a practice among second-class people.
After all, although the thought of it shocked me at first, the price I was asked to pay was not so very heavy, merely one of the usual election platform formulas, whereby the candidate binds himself to support all sorts of things in which he has little or no beliefs. Already I was half committed to this anti-vaccination crusade, and, if I took a step or two farther in it, what did it matter? One crank more added to the great army of British enthusiasts could make little difference in the scheme of things.
If ever a man went through a “psychological moment” in this hour I was that man. The struggle was short and sharp, but it ended as might be expected in the case of one of my history and character. Could I have foreseen the dreadful issues which hung upon my decision, I believe that rather than speak it, for the second time in my life I would have sought the solace to be found in the phials of my medicine chest. But I did not foresee them, I thought only of myself, of my own hopes, fears and ambitions, forgetting that no man can live to himself alone, and that his every deed must act and re-act upon others until humanity ceases to exist.
“Well,” said Mr. Strong after a two or three minutes’ pause, during which these thoughts were wrestling in my mind.
“Well,” I answered, “as you elegantly express it, I am prepared to go the whole hog—it is a case of hog versus calf, isn’t it?—or, for the matter of that, a whole styful of hogs.”
I suppose that my doubts and irritation were apparent in the inelegant jocosity of my manner. At any rate, Stephen Strong, who was a shrewd observer, took alarm.