HORRORS OF VACCINATION EXPOSED AND ILLUSTRATED

PETITION TO THE PRESIDENT TO ABOLISH COMPULSORY VACCINATION IN ARMY AND NAVY

BY
CHAS. M. HIGGINS

PUBLISHED BY
CHAS. M. HIGGINS
BROOKLYN, N.Y.
1920

Copyright, 1920, by
Chas. M. Higgins

Published April, 1920

THE DE VINNE PRESS
NEW YORK

DEDICATION

THIS EARNEST EFFORT FOR THE RECOGNITION AND ENFORCEMENT OF OUR BASIC AMERICAN PRINCIPLE OF “UNALIENABLE” PERSONAL RIGHTS, THE ESTABLISHMENT OF MEDICAL FREEDOM AND THE ABOLISHMENT OF ALL MEDICAL COMPULSION, IS DEDICATED TO OUR UNPRECEDENTED PRESIDENT, WOODROW WILSON, WHOSE NAME WILL SURELY BE PLACED IN THE HIGHEST NICHES OF AMERICAN HISTORY, AS ONE OF OUR GREATEST EXPONENTS OF IDEAL AND PRACTICAL AMERICANISM, FOR OUR OWN COUNTRY AND THE WORLD.

PLATE 1
WISDOM AND LAW

“EVERY LAW NOT BASED ON WISDOM IS A MENACE TO THE STATE”

WISDOM AND LAW

“EVERY LAW NOT BASED ON WISDOM IS A MENACE TO THE STATE”

From the Statue of Wisdom and Law, at entrance to Appellate Court, Twenty-fifth Street and Madison Avenue, New York City. Statue and motto by F. W. Ruckstull, Sculptor. See Frontispiece, Plate 1

A SCULPTURED REBUKE TO COMPULSORY VACCINATION

Compulsory Vaccination is an instance of a law which inflicts actual disease and possible death on the human body and propagates and disseminates deadly infections widely upon animals and mankind. This is surely a glaring instance of a law which is not based on Wisdom or Sanity and is a Menace to the Health and Security of Humanity and the State.

“This amazing act is the homicidal insanity of a whole profession. This is blood assassination.”

Dr. James J. Garth Wilkinson, 1876.

“It is unwise for the physician to force the operation upon those who are unwilling, or to give assurances of absolute harmlessness.”

Dr. Osler’s “Modern Medicine,” 1913, Vol. I, page 848.

“Vaccination is not always a harmless procedure; it must be looked upon as the production of an acute infectious disease.”

Dr. Milton J. Rosenau, 1914.

“Against the body of a healthy man Parliament has no right of assault whatever, under pretence of the public health.”

Professor F. W. Newman, of Oxford.

“Vaccination is a delusion, its penal enforcement a crime.”

Professor Alfred Russel Wallace, in “The Wonderful Century,” 1899.

PUBLIC CHALLENGE TO HEALTH DEPARTMENTS

DEATHS FROM VACCINATION DENIED AND CONCEALED

MORE DEATHS FROM VACCINATION THAN FROM SMALLPOX

IN order that there shall be no misunderstanding about the serious charge which I bring against vaccination, as being now actually more dangerous to public health and human life than natural smallpox, and the equally serious charge which I make against vaccinating doctors—who now control our Departments of Health and Vital Statistics—of denying and concealing these facts from the people, I now issue this special challenge to the Departments of Health of the City and State of New York, which cover a population of eleven millions, and with whose records I am more familiar, that I will undertake to prove from their death certificates and vital records, now concealed and withheld from the public, that there have been more deaths from vaccination than from smallpox in every year for the past fifteen years in the City and State of New York. If they deny the truth of these charges I further solemnly challenge them to open their now concealed records to public examination and I will prove the truth of my charges from these records. Will they now dare to deny these charges or will they dare to refuse to open their heretofore hermetically concealed records to give the full medical and statistical truth to the people on these most important points?

Chas. M. Higgins.

Brooklyn, New York,
September 17, 1919.

FOREWORDS FOR MEDICAL FREEDOM
AND
KEYNOTES OF AMERICAN RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES IN MEDICAL MATTERS

Keynote No. 1: INALIENABLE RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE.

All men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Declaration of Independence, 1776, more properly called Declaration of Rights.

Keynote No. 2: RESERVED RIGHTS AND POWERS RETAINED AND POSSESSED BY THE PEOPLE.

“The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively or to the people.” U. S. Constitution, Articles IX and X, 1789.

Keynote No. 3: SOVEREIGN RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE.

Under our Basic Charters, just quoted, the sovereign right and power rests in the People, and the Government has no rights or powers, whatever, except as conferred by the People. QUESTION: Where have our State or National Governments obtained the right to force any medical remedy or operation upon citizens against their will and consent? Where have these governments obtained the right or power to force an infectious and deadly disease upon the human body in defiance of the will and the right of the citizen? Have the people ever given up their most sacred essential and unalienable right to the sanctity and security of their own bodies and to their free choice and right of selection in the medical treatment of their bodies? This is surely one of the great “unalienable,” “reserved” and “retained” rights which the people have never given up to any government, and which the Legislature or police power has no right to invade. C. M. H.

Keynote No. 4: PREËMINENT RIGHTS OF THE INDIVIDUAL DECLARED BY U. S. SUPREME COURT.

“There is, of course, a sphere within which the individual may assert the supremacy of his own will, and rightfully dispute the authority of any human government, especially of any free government existing under a written constitution, to interfere with the exercise of that will.” U. S. Supreme Court in Vaccination case of Jacobson, 1904. Note: This decision also held that vaccination could not be legally forced upon any persons who could show that it was dangerous to their health or life.

Keynote No. 5: COMPULSORY VACCINATION IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

“It may be conceded that the Legislature has no constitutional right to compel any person to submit to vaccination.” Judge Woodward, of New York Appellate Court, in Viemeister case in 1903.

“If the Commissioner of Health had the power to imprison an individual for refusing to submit to vaccination, I see no reason why he should not also imprison one for refusing to swallow a dose. But the Legislature has conferred no such power upon him, if, indeed, it has the power to do the like.” Judge Gaynor in Supreme Court, Brooklyn, N. Y., 1894, case of Smith vs. Emery. This decision was fully sustained by the Court of Appeals.

Keynote No. 6: MEDICAL COMPULSION AND DOMINATION JUDICIALLY REBUKED AND MEDICAL FREEDOM ASSERTED BY NEW YORK COURT OF APPEALS.

“I concur in Judge Chase’s construction of the statute. But I would go farther. I deny the power of the Legislature to make it a crime to treat disease by prayer.” Decision of Chief Justice Willard Bartlett, of New York Court of Appeals, in “Christian Science” case of Willis Vernon Cole, 1917.

Keynote No. 7: GOVERNMENT HAS NO RIGHT TO FORCE A MEDICAL DISEASE OR OPERATION UPON THE PEOPLE.

From these decisions it would seem to be obvious that it cannot be made a crime to refuse a medical operation to which the patient does not consent or approve, and which is dangerous to health or life, and that this is the “sphere,” as stated by the U. S. Supreme Court, “within which the individual may assert the supremacy of his own will and rightfully dispute the authority of any human government ... to interfere with the exercise of that will.” And, furthermore, this “sphere,” surely means the “Unalienable rights” of the people asserted in the Declaration and the “reserved” rights and powers retained by the people as expressed in Articles IX and X of the Constitution. C. M. H.

Keynote No. 8: THE JEFFERSONIAN OATH OF RATIONAL AMERICAN LIBERTY.

“I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” Thomas Jefferson, Author of Declaration of Independence, to Benjamin Rush, Signer of the Declaration.

Keynote No. 9: MEDICAL FREEDOM IS AN INALIENABLE AMERICAN RIGHT.

The right of the individual to select any preferred system of medical treatment, whether with or without prayer and faith, with or without drugs and medicines, or with or without vaccines or serums, and the right to accept or refuse any medical remedy or operation, is surely a clear inherent and reserved right, under our basic American Charters of Rights and Liberties, and cannot be legally or morally denied, but must be respected, defended and enforced by all Governments. Indeed, our first and Basic Charter—The Declaration of Rights—clearly and emphatically asserts that the essential purpose of Government is to secure these inalienable rights of the individual. Jefferson taught that Liberty, in all essential needs, is not a “privilege” granted by Government, but an inherent right possessed by all men, and naturally or divinely conferred upon them; hence the chief function of all Governments is to secure and enforce these human rights, not to invade or violate them to satisfy medical dogmas or other oppressive, dangerous, and illegal theories. C. M. H.

Keynote No. 10: CONCLUSION: ABOLISH FORCED VACCINATION.

All Compulsory Vaccination should be abolished as being illegal and unconstitutional and more dangerous to public health and human life than natural disease, and therefore a medical outrage and crime upon the people.

The Declaration of Rights distinctly asserts that: “Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it.”

The “ends” here referred to are the natural “unalienable” and “reserved” rights of the people, which are grossly violated by Compulsory Vaccination, and it is therefore the moral, legal and constitutional right of the people to demand the abolishment of this medical evil of compulsory disease which obviously violates their most sacred and essential personal rights, viz.: Sanctity of Body, Medical Liberty and Choice, Health and Life.

TEXT OF PROPOSED LAW TO ABOLISH COMPULSORY VACCINATION.

“No form of vaccination or inoculation shall be compulsory on any person or be made a condition for the exercise of any right, privilege, or duty, of any person.”

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

INTRODUCTION

THIS little book on the Horrors of Compulsory Vaccination, its medical barbarism, and its moral and legal atrocity as a gross violation of Basic Personal and Broad American Rights, is dedicated and addressed to our esteemed President, Woodrow Wilson, for several decisive reasons:

First: Because I believe him to be the most potent personality in public office to-day and our greatest present representative and exponent of Fundamental American Principles and Basic Human Rights, and as being now recognized as a world-wide exponent of these principles both at home and abroad.

Second: Because the President is Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy and is thus invested with supreme commanding and pardoning power, through which he can bring about an immediate reform in the evil practice of compulsory vaccination by pardoning, at his discretion, all men in the Army or Navy now unjustly condemned by Court Martial for refusing vaccination, and by abolishing all compulsion and making all vaccination free and voluntary, as it now is in the English Army.

Third: Because the President is our highest civilian officer and represents in his person and office one of our most important American principles, the supremacy of the civil over the military power. It therefore seemed to me most fit and proper to appeal to our chief civilian officer on any great question which concerns the most fundamental civil rights of the citizen or involves any great abuse of military power, as is the case with this evil practice of compulsory vaccination. And I think it will be readily admitted that medical militarism, such as the arbitrary medical compulsion which forces and inflicts disease upon the human body, under the fallacy of medical necessity and the pressure of military law, is surely one of the most dangerous and oppressive forms of extreme militarism that can be conceived and is not in accordance with the spirit of American Institutions, and should be suppressed. While, therefore, I, as a student of this subject, may earnestly and persistently write and urge, and demonstrate the truth on this subject, and prove by undeniable fact, exhibit, and argument the dangerous nature of compulsory vaccination and the shocking falsehoods on which it is based as to its alleged efficacy, necessity and harmlessness, yet I have not the least power or discretion to remove this evil; whereas the power of the President in this matter is plenary, instant and complete, so that in almost the twinkling of an eye he can abolish this evil in the Army and Navy with one word from his lips or one wave of his hand. And if this evil is once abolished in the Army and Navy, its abolishment everywhere else throughout the land is sure to follow, with great advantage to human right and much improvement in public health, as has resulted wherever this medical malpractice of inoculation with inflicted disease has been reduced or abolished, with a corresponding increase in sanitation and hygiene.

For these good reasons, I have therefore thought it most proper and advisable to make this appeal to our highest civilian official and our Chief Military Commander, who is so potently equipped to give the immediate relief and establish the reform herein asked for, viz., the full Medical Freedom to accept or refuse vaccination as each individual sees fit, which is a basic and inherent American right; and I therefore now submit the numerous and conclusive facts and demonstrations in these pages for the special consideration of the President and the general attention of the People and their Representatives in our National and State Legislatures, and as a full justification of the reform prayed for.

In conclusion, I might say that I first began this work as a simple Letter of Petition to the President to abolish forced vaccination in the Army and Navy, with a brief outline of reasons for this reform, which letter was commenced before the President sailed for Europe to attend the World Peace Conference. But the importance and scope of the subject grew as I worked on it, and I concluded to expand the letter into a full illustration and demonstration of the Horrors of Compulsory Vaccination, its failures, falsehoods, futilities and fatalities, which would be so thorough and convincing that it could not be disregarded. This enlarged work has required nearly twelve months to complete and make ready for the consideration of the President after his return from the Peace Conference, and its publication has been much delayed by several unavoidable conditions, including the recent great strike in the printing trades.

I might further state in conclusion that I have spent a lifetime and a fortune in the study and investigation of this subject and in efforts for the repeal of all unwise laws for forcing vaccination upon the people, which repeal is now being agitated and is progressing all over the civilized world. And as I probably shall not be able to work many more years in this great cause of Medical Freedom, and as this may be my last contribution to the cause, I have concluded to make the case against Compulsory Vaccination so full and complete in this Exposure that there can be no question of its medical malpractice and its dangerous, deadly and illegal nature.

For these reasons I have also thought it my duty to give to the public the benefit of my studies of a lifetime and the accumulation of the many shocking facts, proofs and exhibits which I have been collecting for years, and which, as now massed in the Petition and its Illustrated Supplement, can, I think, leave no doubt in the mind of any reasonable man or woman—not professionally interested in vaccination—that all Compulsory Vaccination should be immediately abolished, and that its continuation, with these proofs against it, would be a most gross medical blunder and malpractice and a grave violation of the basic American principle of Inherent Individual Rights, in being a serious menace to human health and life, a frequent cause of wide-spread epidemics and demonstrably more fatal in many instances than natural disease itself, and therefore a shocking violation of all true medical ethics and a disgrace alike to modern medicine and modern legislation which should no longer tolerate the practice.

Chas. M. Higgins.

Dated at 271 Ninth St., Brooklyn, N. Y.,
December 1, 1919.

HORRORS OF VACCINATION EXPOSED AND ILLUSTRATED

PETITION TO THE PRESIDENT TO ABOLISH COMPULSORY VACCINATION IN ARMY AND NAVY

Subject, in Brief: Request to the President as Commander-in-Chief to abolish Compulsory Vaccination in Army and Navy, to make all vaccination voluntary as it now is in the English Army, and to pardon all men condemned by Court Martial for refusing coercive vaccination.

Compulsory vaccination is a serious danger to health and life, a grave medical malpractice and a gross violation of medical ethics, and of the American principles of Inherent Natural Rights guaranteed in the Declaration and the Constitution, and should be abolished. Dangers and Fatalities of vaccination exposed and illustrated.

PETITION TO THE PRESIDENT

PETITION,
from Chas. M. Higgins
of Brooklyn, N. Y.
a citizen of the United States

TO
The President of the United States
Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy
Washington, D. C.

Mr. President:

American History, as you well know, tells us that our first President, the illustrious George Washington, died in 1799 as the result of a medical malpractice common at that time, viz., the barbarous and dangerous practice of indiscriminate bleeding to cure disease. While suffering from an attack of acute sore throat or laryngitis, the patient was so weakened by the great loss of vital fluid in repeated bleeding operations that he was not able to endure this loss and overcome also the effects of the disease. Our great Washington thus gave up his glorious life—glorious in the establishment of American Liberty and the principles of Inalienable Natural Rights of the Individual as a basis for all Government—on the altar of medical barbarism and malpractice.

HISTORIC WARNING IN THE DEATH OF OUR FIRST PRESIDENT FROM MEDICAL MALPRACTICE

Let us now take this warning from the medical barbarism of the past, even over such a long interval of time, as a fit warning against the medical malpractices and barbarisms of to-day, which are even more irrational and dangerous to human right and safety, health and life than the malpractice of the past which destroyed the life of our first President.

COMPULSORY VACCINATION THE GREAT MEDICAL MALPRACTICE OF TO-DAY WHICH KILLS MANY WHERE BLEEDING KILLED ONE

Now the most barbarous and dangerous medical practice of to-day is the gross evil of compulsory vaccination, which is doubtless the greatest violation of common sense, medical propriety and the unalienable natural rights of the individual guaranteed in our basic American Charters, that any dogmatic, presumptuous profession or class of men has ever been guilty of. And it is to this serious violation of American principle forced on our soldiers and sailors by medical dogmatism that I now wish to ask your most careful attention as one having the supreme commanding and pardoning power in Army and Navy, with the earnest prayer that in the exercise of that exalted wisdom and power possessed by your great American Office and Personality, which has now made itself felt around the whole world, that this medical barbarism of compulsory disease may be abolished in our Army and Navy, and that all men condemned by Court Martial for refusing the infliction on their bodies of compulsory disease shall be fully pardoned and restored to their proper and honorable status as loyal American soldiers and sailors. And I now wish to present to you in the following pages an abundant array of facts and evidence which prove, I think, beyond doubt, the great evil and danger of vaccination, its fatality, and futility, and clearly justify the rational reform suggested for the abolishment of all forced or compulsory vaccination.

THE MODERN MEDICAL BARBARISM POISONS THE BLOOD IN THE BODY INSTEAD OF DRAINING THE BLOOD OUT OF THE BODY

In this medical malpractice of to-day the doctors do not open the veins and drain out the life blood of the patient, ostensibly to cure his disease, as in the mistaken past, but they now keep this blood in the body and inject into it directly or indirectly various more or less virulent diseases, blood poisons, or disease germs, cultures or products, either living or dead, with the idea of curing or preventing some natural disease. These practices are called, respectively, “vaccination” and “serum treatment.” In vaccination an actual living or dead disease germ, or virus, is injected into the blood, lymph, skin or muscle; whereas, in serum or antitoxin treatment a disease product or culture is so injected.

VACCINATION THE MOST DANGEROUS AND REPULSIVE SYSTEM OF MEDICATION EVER DEVISED

Now, whatever merits or demerits this system of disease inoculation may have, either in preventing or curing or immunizing against natural disease, I will not here say and do not need to here discuss, except to state that such curative or preventive power has been much exaggerated and is very limited and uncertain. But whatever these merits or demerits may be, it is obvious on fundamental principles of medical and civic ethics, that such a dangerous and repugnant practice of disease inoculation and blood poisoning should not be made compulsory on any person for any excuse whatever. It must be here remembered that it was admitted that the old smallpox inoculation had a certain preventive power and yet it was finally condemned and abandoned for reasons of its great danger as causing more disease and death than it prevented. Disregarding, therefore, the question of preventive merits or demerits, I think I can now say with perfect truth and soberness, and without fear of refutation, that this modern system of compulsory vaccination is the most violent and dangerous and most immoral or unethical system of medication that has ever been devised by a most honorable yet most presumptuous profession which has been proved guilty of the most gigantic medical mistakes in its past history of the centuries, one of which—indiscriminate bleeding—as we have already seen, killed our first President and many other victims of that period. To this gigantic and abandoned mistake we might now add the two horrible practices of smallpox inoculation and arm-to-arm vaccination, both of which were once used and approved by the highest medical authority as safe and infallible preventives of natural disease, yet both were finally abandoned as great medical mistakes and were prohibited by penal law as most risky methods of propagating and extending disease and more dangerous to human health and life than the natural disease itself.

VACCINATION IS BLOOD POISONING WITH INFLICTED DISEASE AND IS OFTEN MORE FATAL THAN NATURAL DISEASE

For these former medical mistakes there is now substituted the modern medical mistake of compulsory bovine and serum vaccinations of various kinds and multiple repetitions which are in many instances as dangerous to human health and life as the former prohibited malpractices, or more so, and will, doubtless, in due time, be publicly condemned and abandoned as equal mistakes, like their predecessors.

Indeed, this modern vaccine system of medicine is so violent and dangerous that it has been frequently known to kill in from ten to fifteen minutes, after injection of the serum, by what is known as “serum sickness,” which is a kind of rapid blood and nerve poisoning affecting vital nerve centers, to which some persons are very susceptible.[1] This is, of course, a more violent, rapid and fatal action than occurs in the most virulent and deadly natural diseases and is comparable only to a stroke of lightning or shock of electricity or to the violent action of the most virulent chemical, mineral, animal, or vegetable poisons known in toxicology. In other fatal cases, where the poisoning action is slower, death finally occurs from lockjaw, paralysis, meningitis, or pneumonia, which are frequent results of vaccination. And these fatal results of vaccination are commonly denied and concealed in death certificates by recording the terminal disease of lockjaw, paralysis, meningitis, or pneumonia only as the sole and original cause of death without any record of the inflicted disease—vaccination—as the primary or contributory cause of the death. This evil practice is, of course, a gross falsification of our vital statistics, and is now a frequent offense by some of our vaccinating doctors, as I can legally prove by documentary evidence when required.

In some death certificates, however, the vaccination is more or less clearly and honestly acknowledged as the cause of death, direct or indirect. I have now in hand a recent New York death certificate which records the death of a little child one year old in three days after vaccination from vaccinal septicemia, or blood poisoning, due to the vaccinal infection.

EVERY VACCINATION SORE IS AN INFECTING ABSCESS AND EVERY ACT OF VACCINATION IS A BLOOD INFECTION CAPABLE OF CAUSING SERIOUS DISEASE OR DEATH AT ANY TIME

And let me here say that every vaccination sore is simply a septicemic abscess and focus of infection, more or less dangerous, and is possibly capable of infecting the whole system at any time with fatal effect; and, furthermore, every act of ordinary cowpox vaccination is, of course, an act of septicemic infection or blood poisoning, per se, and pure and simple, and frequently kills in this way in the longer or shorter time of a few days, which is, of course, quicker than the worst forms of natural smallpox ever kill. See Figs. 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, pages 83 to 88. On this point see also the “Manual of Causes of Death,” by U. S. Census Bureau, page 56, No. 20, and the corresponding Manual of the Registrar General of England, in which vaccination is recorded as a form of septicemia and a serious cause of death.

As further convincing evidence on this head, I have a Brooklyn death certificate showing the death of a woman hospital nurse six months after vaccination, from multiple abscesses which broke out all over the body in successive crops and continued for six months notwithstanding the most skillful medical efforts for cure, and finally resulted in death from general vaccinal septicemia. See Figs. 11, 12 and 13, which show other cases of this kind.

I have an English certificate showing the death of a man from the same cause, multiple abscesses, resulting from vaccination and continuing for seven years, and finally ending in death from this cause.

I have also another English certificate which shows the death of a little infant from vaccinal septicemia in thirty-four hours after vaccination! Of course the worst form of smallpox was never known to kill in such short time.

These shocking facts thus clearly show that an inflicted disease may be far worse and more fatal than a naturally acquired disease, and that vaccination may kill with surprising swiftness in a few days, hours, or minutes, quicker than the most fatal natural diseases or the most virulent poisons, or may continue a most horrible blood infection with internal or external eruptions through an agony of months or years and finally end in death from this infection.

I have also some recent American death certificates which show the deaths of five little children of primary school age, all killed in one week in September, 1915, from vaccination resulting in lockjaw and septicemia. I have now in hand a memorial pamphlet written by an aggrieved father, a very intelligent man, an editor and manufacturer, Mr. James A. Loyster, of Cazenovia, New York, which shows the death of his own son and about thirty other children from vaccination in New York State in 1914. This child slaughter was the result of a general vaccination raid made upon the school children of the State in that year; and this pamphlet gives convincing proof that about thirty, and probable proof that about twice that number, were killed by vaccine infection, while only three persons died from smallpox in the whole State for the same year! See pages 145 to 163, which give several pages of this pamphlet in full.

COMPULSORY VACCINATION AS A CONDITION FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLING OR FOR SERVICE IN ARMY AND NAVY IS MEDICALLY BARBAROUS AND LEGALLY UNCONSTITUTIONAL, AND SHOULD BE ABOLISHED

These deadly vaccinations above cited were almost all performed on school children to satisfy an evil law which has been originated and sustained by a powerful but mistaken part or sect of the medical profession—the vaccine sect—by which law vaccination is forced upon children of school age as a condition for admission to school, thus making the infliction of a dangerous disease on the tender body of the child a condition for the exercise of that most essential, unquestionable, and inalienable right of the child to Education! Such invasion of natural right to life, health, and education is surely the clearest violation of those great American principles of inherent natural rights so distinctly set forth in the Declaration and Constitution which all Governments must respect and defend, as I will show later on.

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.

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.

HARSH MILITARY PUNISHMENTS CONDEMNED BY AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION

In the New York Tribune of January 4, 1919, the President of the American Bar Association, at a meeting in New York City on January 3d, condemned harsh and unjust judgments of military courts-martial, and stated that “our military laws and our systems of administering military justice are unworthy of the name of law or justice.” He also said that our army was still following rules copied from England in 1774, but which were abandoned long ago as better suited “to the armies of feudal times than to the citizen armies of a modern republic.” He also condemned “the outrageous punishments meted out by our courts-martial for comparatively slight breaches of military discipline.” And he further stated that “Punishments are not only grossly harsh, as compared with the penalties imposed for like offences by our criminal courts, but they also differ so widely that we find the same offence punished in one court-martial by twenty-five years in the penitentiary and in another by six months in disciplinary barracks.” ... “The accused soldier has no real legal protection.” ... “The maintenance of military discipline does not require this harsh and arbitrary procedure. The French army is a model of discipline, but an accused soldier has the protection of the law thrown around him at every stage of his trial. That a soldier in our army should have less legal protection challenges the attention of the lawyers of the country. The American people never will stand for Prussian methods even in disciplining the Army.”

MILITARY OBEDIENCE TO BAD LAW. THE HIGH EXAMPLE OF SOCRATES COMMENDED

Lest some false interpreter should suggest that in here condemning compulsory vaccination in the Army and Navy and urging its abolishment I am attempting “to incite insubordination, disloyalty, or mutiny, or refusal of duty, in the military or naval forces of the United States,” as expressed in the Overman Law, I would now call careful attention to the obvious fact that urging the abolition of a bad law, or petitioning government “for a redress of grievances,” is not urging disobedience to any law, is not inciting mutiny or refusal of duty or disloyalty to the United States, but is a clear constitutional right under Article I of the first amendment, which right, it is there stated, cannot be abridged or denied.

If any loyal soldiers, opposed to forced vaccination, should ask my advice whether they should accept or refuse it, I would advise them to protest against compulsion and ask for its abolition, but I would not advise them to deliberately disobey any legal military rule. And I would further say here that I believe that any soldier who might be injured or killed as a result of any vaccination, to which he was forced to submit by any military law, would suffer and die in the service of his country with just as much honor as if he had died on the battle-field; or with as much honor as in the case of Socrates, the great Grecian soldier and philosopher, who died in obedience to bad law and unjust judgment.

I would further advise all conscientious objectors to forced vaccination to consider the teaching of some strict moralists, that it is better to obey all laws, however bad, than to disobey any of them, and that this obedience and sacrifice is the first duty of the soldier and citizen. And it is also taught that this obedience to bad law, after full and due protest against it, is the best way to bring about its repeal in due time.

This seems to have been the teaching of the great Socrates—the pagan Christ, 399 B.C.—and was the chief lesson of his tragic death. Knowing that he was unjustly and falsely condemned and that his judges acted wrongly, yet within the forms of law, he refused to escape this false and unjust judgment, although he could easily have done so with the help of powerful friends who urged this upon him. Yet he nobly accepted the judgment of law and drank the cup of poison to which he was legally but wrongly sentenced, and thus gave up his life to vindicate what he believed was the sacred duty of the citizen to obey all laws, just or unjust, and the still more sacred duty of the lawmaker and the judge, that all laws and judgments should be absolutely just and true and faithful to all rights of the citizen. If, therefore, it be the first duty of the citizen and soldier to obey all law, good or bad, what a much greater duty is laid upon the lawmaker, the law enforcer, the Judge, and, we might also say, the Commander-in-Chief, that all law and all judgments be absolutely right, just and true, and in no way destructive to the rights of the citizen or soldier who has to obey these laws, good or bad! This was the grand lesson intended by Socrates in the sacrifice of his life as a protest and indictment against bad law and unjust judgment, and we may here, properly, apply this great Socratic lesson, which has morally thundered down “the corridors of time” for the past twenty-four centuries, to all the evil laws for compulsory vaccination which now exist and which should be immediately repealed and replaced by just and equitable rules for voluntary vaccination only as proved by the many reasons already given.—“Every law not based on wisdom is a menace to the State.” See page v.

VOICE OF THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF TO OUR SOLDIERS, “YOU HAVE COMMANDERS, BUT YOU HAVE NO MASTERS.” RIGHTS AND DIGNITIES OF SOLDIERS ASSERTED. MILITARY AND MEDICAL DESPOTISM CONDEMNED

At this point, Mr. President, I want to remind you of the rich American thought you expressed in your address to the American soldiers on the battle-field in France, at Chaumont, on Christmas Day, 1918. You were reported to have there said:

“... this is not a war in which the soldiers of the free nations have obeyed masters. You have commanders, but you have no masters. Your very commanders represent you in representing the nation of which you constitute so distinguished a part.”

Now, the true American thought in this quotation, as I take it, is that, as American soldiers and citizens, they are free men and members of a free state, with American rights and dignities that cannot be invaded, and are not “slaves,” “chattels,” or “subjects” to any one, and, therefore, are not to be treated by any form of military despotism or arbitrary medical dictation, as slaves, hogs, or cattle might be so treated. And as the hog or cattle doctor might properly force any medicine down the throat of the helpless beast without being required to say “by your leave” to his humble patient, or might perform on the body of the helpless animal any operation that he or the owner might decide upon, yet I think that neither of us would admit that any man calling himself a human doctor could, with any decency, propriety, or legality, follow this crude but necessary code of ethics of the animal doctor on the human subject by attempting to perform any medical service on the human body by any intimidation or force or without full approval and consent of the patient. Yet what have we seen? We have seen men, calling themselves doctors, claiming the right to force dangerous medical operations on school children and soldiers without their free will and consent, and with some form of barbarous intimidation or coercion, as they might do with dangerous beasts. We have seen loyal soldiers, conscientiously objecting to unnecessary and dangerous operations on their bodies against their approval or consent, who were tried by court-martial and condemned to imprisonment at hard labor for twenty-five years! And this outrageous sentence was inflicted for nothing more than for asserting one of the most obvious and unalienable rights of every American—the right to the medical sanctity of his own body, the right to medical freedom, choice, and consent in any medical treatment of that body!

Is it not time, therefore, Mr. President, that this clear American principle expressed in your address just quoted should now be applied in this matter, and that this Medical Hoggery of compulsory vaccination should be abolished in our Army and Navy? And is it not time also that the members of that “Divine” profession of Human Healing, in all its schools and sects, should now take action at the earliest possible day to purge their great profession from the deep disgrace of this Medical Hoggery, which they have originated and too long practiced, and which is involved in all forms of dictatorial and compulsory medicine on the human subject?

Of course, in anything I say here I make no reflection on the veterinary doctors whose work, in its own sphere, I regard just as honorable as the work of any other doctors in their sphere.

COMPULSORY VACCINATION NOT NECESSARY AND NOT EFFECTIVE FOR THE HEALTH OF ARMIES OR POPULATIONS. FAILURE OF VACCINATION IN U. S. ARMY OFFICIALLY ADMITTED

There is another strong consideration which I think should move you, Mr. President, toward abolishing this evil of compulsory vaccination with “cruel and unusual” punishment, and that is: That this compulsion and punishment is not really necessary for any military purpose or efficiency, as is proved by several facts in the past and present practice and experience of our own and other armies, for example: First: In the Russian-Japanese war the Japanese adopted for almost the first time the modern, effective system of general military sanitation and hygiene, but used no typhoid vaccination, and yet the army suffered very little from typhoid fever. Second: Per contra, in the Gallipoli expedition in the recent war the English soldiers were generally inoculated with typhoid vaccines, but at the same time the most unsanitary conditions prevailed in camp and field, and the result was a great loss from typhoid and other fevers among the vaccinated. Third: In the U. S. Army in France in 1918, in several camps where sanitation and hygiene were grossly neglected, typhoid vaccination proved to be little or no protection, and it has been officially admitted to be a great failure, as typhoid epidemics prevailed extensively in said camps with a high death-rate among the well vaccinated men. See official report on this subject from the Chief Surgeon of the A. E. F. in U. S. Public Health Reports of March 28, 1919, entitled, “Typhoid Vaccination no Substitute for Sanitary Precautions.” See also page 207 in the annexed Supplement. Fourth: Vaccination is now voluntary in the English Army, and it is estimated that from five to ten per cent. of the Army is unvaccinated. Fifth: There is no court-martial or punishment for refusing vaccination in the English Army, as is shown by a recent inquiry in the English Parliament, reported as follows:

“Official Parliamentary Debates, April 23, 1918, Column 833.

“Mr. Chancellor asked the Under-Secretary for War, Mr. Macpherson:

“Question A. Whether refusal of vaccination by any soldier is a military crime. Answer A. Refusal by a soldier to be vaccinated is not an offence punishable under the Army Act.

“Question B. Whether any officer is authorized to inflict punishment of any kind for such refusal. Answer B. No officer is authorized to inflict punishment for such refusal.

“Question C. Whether the fact of a man who joined when vaccination was compulsory, having assented reluctantly then, alters his legal position now that vaccination is no longer subject to legal compulsion in the Army. Answer C. Soldiers voluntarily enlisted who, at the time of their enlistment, agreed in their attestation papers to be vaccinated, cannot be punished under the Army Act for refusing to be vaccinated.”

Now, in these facts I think it is distinctly proved that compulsory vaccination is neither necessary nor surely effective as a protective remedy, but is of doubtful value as a preventive, and is not necessary where efficient sanitation and hygiene are used, as is now the practice in modern armies; and, hence, vaccination should not be forced on any soldier or sailor under penalty of drastic punishments for refusal, but should be left to the free and voluntary assent of each man, as it now is in the English Army. Furthermore, it is believed that, instead of forcing wholesale compulsory disease upon the Army, with the vain idea of increasing health, equal effort and expense devoted to true sanitation and hygiene would surely produce better results, as emphatically proved by recent critical experience in our own Army, as just cited. See also page 210.

MEDICAL AND OTHER AUTHORITIES ADMIT DANGERS OF VACCINATION AND CONDEMN COMPULSION

Surely the example of the English Army, as above given, is a good enough precedent and authority to justify abolishing all compulsion and penalties and making all vaccination voluntary in our American Army and Navy, but if any other authorities are required for this reform, I might cite for a second example the advice from one of the highest medical authorities of to-day, viz., Osler’s “Modern Medicine,” new edition, 1913, Volume I, page 848, which admits the dangers of vaccination and condemns compulsion in these words:

“With the greatest care, however, certain risks are present and so it is unwise for the physician to force the operation upon those who are unwilling, or to give assurances of absolute harmlessness.”

I will now ask your attention to a third authority against compulsion, which is of the highest significance and force, viz., the great English Commission on Vaccination appointed by Queen Victoria in 1889, which sat for about seven years, made a most exhaustive examination of the subject, and rendered its voluminous reports in 1896. This Commission was composed of five of the leading doctors and eight of the leading laymen of England, and their majority and minority reports differed on the merits of vaccination, but both admitted its dangers and both agreed in advising the repeal or modification of the English compulsory law, which, however, did not apply to adults, but only to infants under one year, which form the most susceptible part of the population. After this recommendation a law was passed, now in force, called the “conscientious clause,” whereby parents can exempt their children from vaccination by filing a statement of conscientious objection; and under this law vaccination has so greatly declined in England that to-day it is estimated that over sixty per cent. of the children born are unvaccinated, and yet, contrary to the contentions of the vaccinators, smallpox has not increased, but has greatly declined, corresponding to the decline in vaccination and to the increase in general sanitation and hygiene, as England is now one of the most sanitary countries in the world. This beneficial effect on public health resulting from repealing compulsion and making vaccination voluntary has been so positive that the English Minister of Health, Hon. John Burns, made this significant public declaration in the House of Commons on April 12, 1911, viz.: “Just in proportion as, in recent years, exemptions [from vaccination] have gone up from four per cent. to thirty per cent., so deaths from smallpox have declined.”

I will now add a fourth and last example in which I think you will find a full justification for suppressing all compulsory vaccination as both evil and unnecessary, and this is the advice of one of the latest English books on “The Vaccination Question” by Dr. Millard, London, 1914. Dr. Millard, although a strong pro-vaccinist, has been for the past ten years the health officer of the unvaccinated city of Leicester, which has a population of about 300,000, and for the last thirty years has relied on sanitation and hygiene without vaccination to protect and improve the public health, and this is the gist of what Dr. Millard says of the success of this method:

“The two crucial and outstanding facts which I wish to lay stress upon, are:

“(a) The unexpected and remarkable experience of the town of Leicester, which for thirty years has abandoned infantile vaccination, yet has shown an enormous decline in smallpox mortality.

“(b) The fact that, although infantile vaccination is falling more and more into disuse throughout the whole country, yet smallpox, contrary to all pro-vaccinist expectation and prophecy, continues to decline and has almost disappeared.

... “The striking facts that in Leicester, without infantile vaccination, the decline has been greater than in most places, and that throughout the country smallpox has continued to decrease in spite of the falling off in vaccination, should surely be sufficient grounds for legitimate doubt.

... “If it can be shown that ‘sanitation,’ thoroughly carried out, is alone sufficient for the effective control of smallpox in this country (as in Leicester), why inflict upon the community universal vaccination with all its inseparable drawbacks? Moreover, what justification can there be any longer for compulsion?

“It cannot be denied that vaccination causes, in the aggregate, very considerable injury to health, most of it only temporary, but some permanent.... We must never forget that vaccination is an evil. Vaccinia is just as much a disease as smallpox, though a less serious one, and all diseases must be regarded as evil and to be avoided, if possible. There is not the slightest evidence that vaccination, apart from its effect in preventing smallpox, is of the least value or anything but detrimental to the human race.... During the last decade the deaths from vaccinia have several times outnumbered those from smallpox, whilst if we have regard to the amount of ill health caused by the two diseases (and putting aside for the moment the question of the alleged effect of vaccination in lessening smallpox) it looks as if vaccinia were becoming, so far as the community is concerned, the more serious disease of the two.”

DEATHS FROM VACCINATION GREATER THAN DEATHS FROM SMALLPOX. SHOCKING DENIAL AND CONCEALMENT OF VACCINATION DEATHS BY OUR DEPARTMENTS OF HEALTH AND VITAL STATISTICS

It will be seen from the last quotation that Dr. Millard is one of those honest doctors who are not afraid to tell the truth about vaccination, its great dangers and frequent fatalities, the evils and barbarities of compulsion, the superior value of sanitation, and the stinging fact that the inflicted disease, vaccinia, frequently causes more deaths per year than the natural disease, smallpox! To confirm these startling facts I will now quote a few figures, during the period to which Dr. Millard refers, from the record of the Registrar General of England which, as you know, is one of the highest statistical authorities in the world.

Data from Reports of Registrar General of England showing deaths from vaccination compared with deaths from smallpox:

From these remarkable figures we will see that for the six years from 1905 to 1910, in England and Wales, the total deaths from vaccination for all ages were about half the total deaths from smallpox, but that in the same period the total deaths from vaccination, in the child ages of five years and under, were nearly four times the deaths from smallpox in the same age group!

The report of the English Registrar General for the three years, 1911, 1912, and 1913, tell a similar story of vaccinal fatality, as follows:

Here it will be noted that for the three years stated the total deaths from vaccination are three-quarters of the total deaths from smallpox, whereas the deaths from vaccination in children five years old and under are over three times more than the deaths from smallpox in the same age group! I have not examined the Reports later than 1913, having confined myself to the decade to which Dr. Millard refers.

This awful record of fatal vaccinations thus speaks very clearly for itself and forms a strong indictment of the whole barbarous and dangerous system of compulsory vaccination, whether for child or adult, and must condemn the evil practice in every rational mind.

It can be further proved that an equal or greater fatality from vaccination, as compared with the English records, occurs in our own country and in our own State of New York, but these fatalities are denied and concealed in our death certificates and yearly reports by our vaccinating doctors and health officials of city and State, as I have repeatedly and publicly charged, and have challenged these doctors and officials to deny or disprove this charge if they can, and I now hereby renew this public challenge on this most serious point. See challenge on page vi.

For further data on this point, see my pamphlets, “The Crime Against the School Child,” “Open Your Eyes,” “Serious Warning,” and “Vaccination and Lockjaw.”

GREAT EPIDEMICS OF DEADLY DISEASE, IN ANIMALS AND MANKIND, CAUSED BY VACCINATION

Now, not only is vaccination very dangerous to health and life in many individual cases and frequently causes more deaths every year than smallpox, particularly in little children, as already clearly proved, but another shocking fact is that vaccination has been proved to be the cause of several great epidemics of deadly disease among mankind and domestic animals, and has probably also been the cause of many other serious epidemics whose origin has not yet been proved.

This shocking fact of vaccine epidemics in recent times is readily proved by current medical works, by Government Reports, and by notorious public facts occurring within the last few years, as I will now show.

I may first refer on this point to one of the strongest pro-vaccination works now published, viz., “Acute Contagious Diseases,” by Drs. Welch and Schamberg, Lea Brothers & Co., Philadelphia, 1905. On page 65, in this work, the following serious admission is made:

“Several appalling epidemics of septicemia after vaccination are on record; one occurred in the United States, one in Germany, and one in France.”

These epidemics are shown to have caused many deaths in children and adults, the fatal effect being very rapid, the deaths occurring in one or a few days after vaccination.

On page 74, in the same work, this clear admission of an epidemic of that most awful and fatal disease, lockjaw, caused by vaccination, is made as follows:

“In October, November, and December, 1901, there was a small epidemic of tetanus after vaccination in Camden, Philadelphia, and to a certain extent in near-by towns.

“Camden had eleven cases, and Philadelphia even more than this number.”

It is to be here noted, however, that, bad as this last admission is, the pro-vaccinators did not give the public the whole truth in this last statement, but which I will now add here, viz., that in these epidemics the deaths from the lockjaw infection in the vaccination wounds exceeded by manifold the deaths from smallpox in the same time and locality! Here is another great proof of the medical and statistical truth to which I have repeatedly called attention, viz., that vaccination is frequently a much more dangerous and fatal disease than natural smallpox, and, therefore, obviously, for this reason alone, should not be forced on any person against free will and consent.

VACCINATION BOTH A THEORETICAL AND A PROVED CAUSE OF EPIDEMICS

In a previous letter to the Secretary of War, dated October 14, 1918, and published in the Washington Herald of November 20, 1918, I have pointed out the dangerous nature of vaccination, particularly during epidemics, and the hygienic importance of suspending all vaccination during our recent epidemic of influenza and pneumonia, and the further desirability of making all vaccination strictly free and voluntary. I also then called attention to the probability that the repeated and multiple vaccinations of millions of men, in this country and Europe, with various septicemic infections for the last two years, may have had some relation to this epidemic, which seems to have been more severe among the vaccinated men in the military camps and hospitals than among the rest of the population. And I would now like to repeat here some of the important facts which I have stated in said letter as to both the probable and the proved relation of vaccination to many deadly epidemics.

GRAVE NATURE OF RECENT EPIDEMIC OF INFLUENZA AND PNEUMONIA, AND POSSIBLE RELATION OF VACCINATION THERETO

From the rapidity, severity, and mortality of this disease, it would seem not to be a true influenza, as heretofore known, and as its worst cases are characterized by a rapid and fatal ending, with a few days’ sickness, in malignant or septic pneumonia, with abscesses in the lungs, it seems more related to the very fatal “Pneumonic Plague” which raged in Manchuria after the Japanese war. This suspicion is strengthened by the fact that the chief germ found in the fatal cases is the “streptococcus,” which is found in the worst forms of “blood poisoning” or “septicemia,” and also in vaccination. Now, the act of ordinary vaccination, as already proved, is, in itself, an act of blood poisoning, pure and simple, and it is so classed in medical and statistical works as a form of “septicemia,” and one disease germ commonly found, with many others, in vaccine virus is the streptococcus, which is the chief germ found in all bad pus infections and abscess formations. Therefore, as the act of vaccination is simply the impregnation of the body and blood with a pus infection identical with “septicemia” or “pyæmia,” and as this infecting process has been repeated at wholesale in the bodies of thousands and tens of thousands of men closely massed in camps, should it be any wonder if an epidemic of some sort of “septicemia” should crop out at some time under such conditions?

In leading medical and statistical works, both influenza and pneumonia and typhoid fever and vaccination are all classed as different forms of “septicemia,” and while I do not, of course, know, and do not say, that the recent epidemic of influenza and pneumonia was actually caused by vaccination, yet I repeat that when the body and blood of millions of men all over this country and Europe are deliberately impregnated with various septic diseases, or septicemic infections, can any reasonable person, whether doctor or layman, be surprised if such world-wide, and million times repeated, acts of septicemic infection should be ultimately proved to have some causative or conditional relation to the recent world-wide epidemic of septicemic disease? Is it physically or medically possible to go on sowing and spreading some known and unknown septic diseases at wholesale, within human bodies, without reaping some big harvest of deadly septic diseases as a necessary consequence? In the words of Scripture, can we keep on “sowing” the “winds” of infection without ultimately “reaping” the “whirlwind” of epidemics?

It has been suggested that this epidemic originated in the multi-vaccinated and diseased or impoverished German army and has traveled one-quarter round the earth from that focus of infection.

It has also been suggested that this epidemic originated from a regiment of coolies or native Hindoo troops brought from India to France who were infected with a severe disease like Pneumonic Plague, and from them this disease spread to the other soldiers in camp and field and thence over the world.

It has been further suggested that this disease should not be called a true influenza or pneumonia at all, but is essentially a most virulent form of general septicemia, and that it originated from the frightfully infected soil of the battle-fields, which, in addition to the ordinary deadly soil infections, contains virulent septicemic and cadaveric infections from the great mass of buried and unburied bodies. And as the soldiers in camp and field were already impregnated with several septicemic infections in the multiple vaccinations of five or six kinds to which they have been almost universally subjected, their systems thus became “sensitized” or highly susceptible to further infection, particularly to what was evidently a new and very severe type of soil and cadaveric infection. This theory seems to fit the present known facts and would explain the probable origin of this very severe type of virulent septicemic plague, which shows itself in this mysterious and deadly epidemic with its mortality of thirty to sixty per cent., which we have been improperly regarding as ordinary influenza and pneumonia.

In my letter to the Secretary of War I proved that there was a distinct medical and logical relation between influenza and vaccination, and that many serious diseases, including smallpox and cowpox, commence like influenza and may be mistaken for it,[2] but I do not need to go into proof of that point here, but can now say that this point further strengthens the suspicions stated that the recent epidemic of influenza and septicemia or septic pneumonia may have had some causative relation to the extensive wholesale and repeated vaccinations in the military camps throughout the world, and would indicate, according to another theory, that this vaccine infection had escaped from and overflowed its usual bounds and was running wild as a world-wide epidemic infection; and hence the positive and compelling reasons for checking this overflowing infection by suspending all vaccination while this epidemic and infecting condition exists, and making all vaccination voluntary instead of compulsory as heretofore.

EPIDEMICS ACTUALLY CAUSED BY VACCINATION

That the hypothetical condition suggested in the preceding paragraph, viz., that the wholesale and world-wide vaccine infection going on for the past few years had possibly escaped from its usual bounds and has been overflowing and running wild and thus causing epidemics in mankind, or animals,—that this, I say, may be no mere hypothesis or theory, but rather a hard fact, is proved by the frightful epidemics of “foot and mouth disease” in the United States in 1902, 1908, and 1914, some of which originated from two of the largest vaccine factories in this country, one in Philadelphia and the other in Detroit, and were widely distributed to cattle and mankind in several of our States. See reports of U. S. Bureau of Animal Industry, 1902 and 1908. Also Year Book of U. S. Department of Agriculture, 1914, page 20. See also page 96 in Supplement.

It is clearly shown in these reports that vaccine infection was the direct cause of these epidemics in 1902 and 1908; but the cause of the epidemic of 1914 and 1915 is not so clearly proven, although there is a strong suspicion that it was caused by vaccine infection, like the two others, and, as a matter of fact, it originated in the same State—Michigan—where the epidemic of 1908 originated and where one of the largest vaccine factories in the country is located. See page 98 in Supplement.

These vaccine epidemics caused the destruction of hundreds of thousands of cattle and other domestic animals in over a score of States, at a loss of many millions of dollars to the Government and people of this country. See page 102. Surely, Mr. President, any medical operation so inherently dangerous and capable of inflicting such injury on animals or man should not be forced on any person against conscientious objection or without free will and consent and should not be required by our enlightened democratic Government in our Army or Navy in any form except purely voluntary, like all other medical remedies and operations.

There is an attempt made in some of the official reports to deny that these epidemics of “foot and mouth disease” caused by vaccination could be or were transmitted to mankind in virus and were limited to domestic animals, but this I believe to be a grave mistake, as I have the most convincing evidence that this disease was so transmitted to many human victims, both child and adult, with most awful effects in 1902 and 1908, and is frequently transmitted to mankind in vaccine virus. See Supplement, page 111.

VACCINE FACTORIES A POSSIBLE AND PROVED SOURCE OF EPIDEMICS AND SHOULD BE INVESTIGATED BY CONGRESS AND THE GOVERNMENT

This foot and mouth disease is a horrible eruptive fever, a kind of “cowpox,” or something like a mongrel smallpox and diphtheria combined, or also like a very bad chickenpox, with successive crops of vesicles, blisters or blotches, something like cold sores, large and small, breaking out all over the body, but chiefly on the hoofs, or hands and feet, lips and nostrils, also inside the mouth and throat as is common in smallpox. Sometimes these blotches become confluent and pustular and continue for months, but, usually, the eruption ends in a few weeks in recovery or death. In the worst cases, with internal eruptions and pus infection, affecting vital nerve centers, the end comes in a few days by the victim choking to death from paralysis of the heart and breathing organs like what happens in infant paralysis, rabies and lockjaw. For effects on cattle and mankind, see Figs. 7, 8, 9, 11, 12 and 13 in Supplement.

Now here we see that at least two and probably three great epidemics of fatal disease have originated from vaccine factories and this raises the serious question as to how far other epidemics, or even the recent epidemic of influenza, and pneumonia, may have originated from some vaccine factory or from some of their products extensively or carelessly used. Surely the places where dangerous infectious diseases are constantly propagated on a gigantic scale, and disseminated therefrom into the bodies of millions of animals and mankind, should be the very possible or probable source of epidemic disease. Obviously, therefore, this entire subject of the present extensive manufacture and distribution of diseases or disease cultures or products and its relation to epidemics and public health should be thoroughly investigated by Congress and the Government at an early date. To show you what a gigantic and dangerous medical interest this vaccine manufacture has become, it may be sufficient to state that there are now about 100 concerns licensed by the U. S. Government to manufacture vaccines and serums for animal and human uses. This is one of the great medical interests supporting compulsory vaccination, which is a grave medical malpractice, and should be abolished wherever it exists and replaced by wholly voluntary vaccination as already shown.

EPIDEMICS AND HIGH DEATH RATES IN THE ARMY PROBABLY CAUSED BY WHOLESALE AND REPEATED VACCINATIONS. DEATH RATE OF ARMY FROM DISEASE MUCH GREATER THAN THAT OF CIVIL POPULATION

After careful study of this subject for years I firmly believe that, with the excellent sanitary and hygienic conditions now used in our Army, the dangerous system of disease inoculations, whereby the blood of every man is impregnated with multiple and repeated vaccinations of several diseases, such as smallpox, typhoid, paratyphoid, etc., is a system, to say the least, that is neither necessary nor ultimately useful for army health. And it is probable that this system produces far more disease than it prevents. For example: For one death which naturally occurs in the whole population from smallpox or typhoid fever, ten to one hundred deaths occur from the far more frequent and fatal diseases of tuberculosis, measles, pneumonia and meningitis. And let us here ask, what is the use of having soldiers forced to submit to a whole series of disease infections, if these infections, at best, give immunity only for a little while from such diseases as smallpox and typhoid and make the system more susceptible to the far worse diseases of measles, pneumonia and meningitis, which actually seems to be the possible effects of vaccination from the recurring epidemics of these dangerous diseases in our heavily vaccinated camps?

As a matter of fact, my studies of deaths from vaccination for many years past show that meningitis and pneumonia are some of the most frequent complications; and these two diseases seem to have a certain relation to vaccination and seem to be very fatal where vaccination precedes them, and thus acts in what is called a “double” or “mixed infection,” which is known to be very dangerous to health and life. See Osler’s “Modern Medicine,” 1913, Vol. I, pages 32 and 33. See also Osler’s “Principles and Practice of Medicine,” 8th edition, 1918, page 330, on the “Influence of Vaccination on Other Diseases.” See also pages 135 and 139 in the Supplement.

Another most significant fact in this connection is the high death-rate from disease in the Army, as compared with the civil population, which I will now consider.

On page 18 in the Report of the Secretary of War for 1918 the death rate of the Army in the United States from disease for the year ending August 30, 1918, is given as 6.4; that is, about 6½ deaths for every thousand men in the Army. The age-groups composing the Army are, of course, on the general average, between twenty and forty, inclusive. In the same Report it is admitted that the male civilian death-rate for the same ages as in the Army (twenty to forty) was about 4.7, which is a difference of 1.7 or nearly 2 per 1000 in favor of the civil population or civilian males! This civil death-rate is thus, actually and relatively, much lower than the army death-rate, and this fact is very significant as positively indicating some serious cause at work to lower greatly the vitality and resistance and increase the death-rate in the army! Now what is that cause?

The figures 6.4 per thousand for the Army and 4.7 per thousand for the civil population of the same ages is a great actual difference, but, of course, means, relatively, a much greater total difference against the Army because the army population is made up of “hand-picked” men selected for their nearly perfect health and physique and the absence of all serious constitutional diseases such as tuberculosis and others, which are all excluded from the army group. On the other hand, the civil population of the same age group of twenty to forty includes the healthy and diseased, and particularly those afflicted with tuberculosis, which constitute a big fraction, and which disease is most prevalent and fatal in this very age group of twenty to forty! Yet this civil population, containing all the diseased at the most fatal adult ages, has a much lower death-rate than the “hand-picked” physically perfect army group! Now what is the cause of this much higher death-rate in men of the most physically perfect class, and who are now treated with the best sanitary and hygienic living conditions, and where the death-rate should be the lowest? What is the cause of this difference if it is not that extraordinary medical practice, or malpractice, which deliberately impregnates the bodies of these exceptionally healthy and “hand-picked” men with a whole series of the worst type of disease infections known—that is, septicemic infections, like the typhoids and the variolas, etc.? And should anyone wonder, therefore, if the death lists of the army should show plainly in the blood poisoning diseases of pneumonia, meningitis, etc., which are known to follow frequently after vaccination? See pages 139 to 142 for a convincing proof of this point. Surely no person of ordinary sense—not even an extreme vaccinator—can presume to seriously tell us that impregnating the human body and blood with several disease cultures and infections is a purely healthy practice per se. And surely no person of ordinary sense can come to any other conclusion except this: that such operations must be dangerous and unhealthy per se.

In all this contention, Mr. President, there is, surely, something which is very important, which should be most carefully considered and fully investigated by the Commander-in-Chief, by Congress and the Departments, at an early day.

WONDERFUL WORK OF THE WAR AND NAVY DEPARTMENTS GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGED

Before closing I must here express to you, as Commander-in-Chief, my full appreciation of the wonderful work done by the War and Navy Departments and by the officers of the Army and Navy in raising, encamping, training and equipping our great Army and Navy and putting them into the fighting field so quickly and so potently, with the result of immediately turning the tide of warfare against the brutal enemy, for which majestic result these Departments, and the officers of the Army and Navy, most fully deserve, as they undoubtedly have, the unstinted thanks and congratulations of our whole citizenry, civil and military, man and woman.

No army or navy in field, camp or ship has ever been taken better care of in a general sanitary, hygienic and medical sense than our Army and Navy in this gruelling war. The able and liberal way in which the physical, moral, mental, religious and recreational needs of the men have been covered by various bodies, military, medical, civic, and religious, has been the wonder of all our citizens who have visited our camps. And to this was undoubtedly due the cheerful and high spirits, the wonderful morale and fighting power which made themselves instantly felt on the battle-fields of Europe and so quickly brought the barbarous enemy to his knees in the glorious climax of Victory and Peace which we are now enjoying, and which we all firmly hope and believe will soon be followed by a Permanent and International Peace coextensive with the civilized world, for which great end, Mr. President, you have been working so ably, energetically and devotedly. And I feel sure that your master efforts with our own people and with our victorious Allies will soon bring about that League of Nations for the government of the world based on the eternal principles of reciprocal right and justice and the basic principles of American Institutions—Equality, Consent of the Governed, and Rational Liberty—for all persons in their inherent natural rights.

I, therefore, regret that I have had any criticism to make on this glorious record of our Army and Navy, but this criticism really concerns only a part of the medical profession in the Army and Navy, and one of its medical dogmas, and does not reflect on the rank and file of the military and naval forces of our country, a majority of which does not, I believe, approve this dangerous medical practice, or malpractice, of compulsory vaccination which has been forced by medical dogmatism on the Army and Navy, and which, I believe, clearly violates fundamental American principles and also stultifies our proud claim that this is a government of “Liberty and Justice for all.”

COMPULSORY VACCINATION CONDEMNED AS UN-AMERICAN

In compulsory vaccination there is obviously neither “liberty” nor “justice” and it is utterly opposed to the fundamental American principle of inherent human right to medical liberty and choice, and to sanctity of body, and it therefore fits properly only with some code of Prussianism—from which it has been in fact copied.

I would, therefore, now like to show by appeal to our great basic American Documents of Rights and Liberties that all forms of medical compulsion and dictation and compulsory vaccination are illegal and unconstitutional and also violate all true civic and medical ethics.

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, OUR BASIC CHARTER OF AMERICAN RIGHTS, CONDEMNS ALL VIOLATIONS OF INHERENT NATURAL RIGHTS

The Declaration of Independence is, I believe, the greatest ethical and political document ever penned by human hand or human wisdom—the greatest document of Human Rights and Liberties, Basic Ethics, Civic Religion and Democratic Government ever written—and all expressed in its one essential paragraph, as follows:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.”

We have been accustomed to call this great document a “Declaration of Independence,” but it should more properly be called a “Declaration of Rights” because “Independence,” or self-government, is only one of the several “unalienable” rights declared in this great charter. It is in fact our great “Bill of Rights,” being our first Charter and Declaration of those essential, natural, inherent and ineffaceable rights of mankind, which all governments must respect, defend and enforce, and which cannot be ignored or invaded by any authority, organization or government whatever. It is indeed our American “Magna Charta” of fundamental rights and our first or Pre-Constitution preceding our formal Constitution, and, of course, equal to it as a basis for all law and government, and particularly expressing what may be termed our Pre-Constitutional Rights—that is, those rights which always existed by “Natural” and “Divine” endowment before any human laws, charters or constitutions were ever written; and it, of course, antedates, and therefore takes precedence even over our State and National laws and Constitutions, which, to be valid, must be based on the fundamental principles of inherent human and natural rights which are naturally and divinely and equally conferred upon all mankind. It must be remembered at this point that the official title of this great document is “The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America,” which shows that it is the official statement or code of the foundation governing principles of the New Nation issued by its first Congress and has, therefore, the full effect of a “Constitution,” “Pre-Constitution” or “Bill of Rights.”

THE CODE AND BASIS OF AMERICANISM

This great primary Code of Rights, which is adapted for the just and beneficent rule of mankind in all their relations, has not been half well enough understood or appreciated by our American people heretofore, and it has been usually looked upon as chiefly a political document, whereas, it is essentially much more than that, being in fact a great code of basic ethics and civic religion, in addition to a code of democratic government, with a wide scope and character, which fits it equally to individual, national, or international relations; and this makes it truly our American Bible and Creed and our basis for a great American and Universal “Religion” both ethical and political, which can and should be now adopted by the “League of Nations” as a standard code or basis for the moral and political government of mankind the world over, and should be taught in all our schools as the basis of Americanism.

It is time, therefore, that Americans clearly understood and appreciated the full ethical, legal and political scope and sense of this wonderful code of one paragraph, and it is time also that this great and simple Code of Essential Americanism was plainly emblazoned on our public walls, spaces and monuments like the inscription “Holiness to the Lord” displayed on the forefront of the high priests, as directed in Exodus, Chapter 28, so that all our people can get fully acquainted and inspired with the broad and simple principles of Right and Justice in this sublime Code of Americanism.

This great paragraph of basic Americanism should, therefore, be conspicuously posted on every public building, school, and church in the land, over the Judge’s bench in every Court, over the rostrum in every Legislature and over the desk of every public officer, and particularly over the desk of every public doctor, Medical Board and Board of Health in the land, which have been heretofore some of the worst violators of this code of unalienable human rights in their various barbarous practices of medical domination, dictation and compulsion, and forced infliction of disease.

Now I do not intend, in this article, to show just how the Declaration of Independence can be seriously considered as a clear and sure basis for rational ethics and civic religion for the legal and moral government of mankind, in all relations, having reserved that important subject for full treatment in a separate article, but I do intend to show here how the evil of compulsory vaccination and all other forms of compulsory medicine are gross violations of the Declaration and its principles of basic Americanism and inherent human rights so clearly defined therein.

THE FIVE ARTICLES OF THE DECLARATION OF RIGHTS, JULY 4, 1776

First: All men are created equal.

Second: All men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Third: Governments are instituted among men to secure these unalienable rights.

Fourth: Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Fifth: Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it.

Let us now take up the first article of the Declaration—“All men are created equal”—and see what it means, and what it does not mean. It surely does not mean that all men are created equal in worldly possessions or natural advantages, in physical strength, personal beauty, moral sense or mental power, as it is notorious that mankind differ unavoidably and universally in all these conditions. But it clearly does mean that all men are created equal in a moral, legal and governmental sense, equal as members of society or citizens of the State, no matter how much they may differ in inherent or acquired advantages. It means that one man shall count no more than any other man before the law or in the State by reason of worldly possessions or personal advantages, but that each man shall count alike and equal, no matter how rich or poor, strong or weak, smart or dull, handsome or plain he may be. It means also that the “Creator” has not arbitrarily picked out any particular person, group, family, or race, as His special favorites, to rule or lord it over any other person or mass of persons; and, particularly, that the Creator has not specially “ordained” any favorite person to rule over any part of mankind without their selection and consent. It does mean that the Creator has no “favorites,” but that all men are “equal” before Him, and, hence, that barbarous and oppressive fallacy of “Divine-Right-Monarchism” is emphatically repudiated in this first Article. It means that all “one-man-rule” or “one-race-rule,” and all vile Germanism of the “Gott-Mit-Uns” or “Germans-Over-All” type, is flatly condemned. But, per contra, this Article does plainly mean that the Creator has divinely ordained each and every human individual to be an equal “sovereign” in his own right and that all government depends on the selection and consent of these individual and equal sovereigns who are “endowed” with the “divine right” of collectively forming their own government and selecting their own rulers, instead of having a rule and a ruler forced on them by alleged “divine” command, and without their selection or consent. In other words, this Article obviously means, pure and simple, “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

Now if each individual American is divinely ordained as an equalized sovereign in his own right—and this is surely a grand distinction of the American Institution and the American citizen—he obviously has a sovereign right to his own body and all his natural possessions; and the most sacred and essential of these rights and possessions is, obviously, the right to his own physical body, the sanctity of his own person, and the right to decide how it shall be treated or taken care of in health or disease; and if he has not this sacred and sovereign right to his own body he has practically no right at all and might as well be wiped out and would be better dead. Therefore, if any doctor or other person claims the right to possess the body of any man, to experiment or operate upon it, to medicate, cut, inoculate, or treat his body as he might see fit, without the free choice, consent or approval of that man, it is obvious that the man is no longer a sovereign or the owner of his own body, but is a mere “slave” or domestic animal and that the doctor really owns his body and is his “master” as much as if he were a pig or dog; so that, therefore, all “equality” and “sovereignty” of the individual is destroyed by this medical “hoggery” and we have not a “government of the people, by the people, for the people,” but a government of the doctors, by the doctors, for the doctors,—which in fact we now have to a very dangerous extent. And, indeed, medical organization, compulsion, dictation and domination have now got to such a stage that it is one of the most dangerous powers in our body politic and must be curbed, as I will show later on.

It therefore follows that all compulsory or dictatorial medicine is an absolute violation of the first or basic principle of Americanism as expressed in our great Declaration of Rights, and our first or Pre-Constitution, and therefore must be abolished if we would be true to basic human right and fundamental American principles.

We will now take up the second Article of the Declaration and study its meaning. This Article, with a slight variation of the official words, is as follows:

“All men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Now the great keynote-words in this clause, “unalienable rights,” mean “inseparable rights,” rights which the citizen cannot be separated from, rights which cannot be removed or taken away from the people or denied or invaded by any government or power whatever, but which all governments must respect and defend.

This second article from the Declaration of Rights is, I think, the wisest, most important and significant statement in a political, legal and moral sense that was ever written by human hand or human mind, because it is the essence of the essential paragraph of the Declaration and clearly expresses the basis of Democratic Government, Rational Ethics, and Civic Religion, in one simple clause or sentence! This basis is simply the inherent and “unalienable” rights of our fellow men necessary for human life, liberty and happiness, which are naturally or divinely conferred upon all men, equally, and cannot be ignored or violated by individuals or governments. And it is obvious that the honest and general recognition of these rights will at once establish true justice and righteousness among men and nations, and the disregard and violation of these rights is now, and ever has been, the cause of all wrongdoing, war, and other evils between men and nations the world over.

This simple and potent statement of basic human rights is therefore equal in ethical and legal force to the bulk of the Decalogue itself and to the Golden Rule of Humanity, Honesty and Justice in its three best versions from the world’s greatest moral teachers, Confucius, Plato and Christ; so that in this simple sentence from the essential paragraph of our first great national document we have a code of Democratic Government and of Human Ethics in one sentence, which, as before suggested, should be taught in all our schools as the basis of Americanism.

THE GOLDEN RULE AND THE DECLARATION OF RIGHTS COMPARED

It may be worth while to consider here for a moment what is perhaps the best version of the “Golden Rule,” viz., the version of Plato in Plato’s Laws, Book XI, Prof. Jowett’s translation, which is in these words, dated about 360 B.C.:

“Thou shalt not touch that which is mine, if thou canst help, or remove the least thing which belongs to me without my consent: and may I, being of sound mind, do to others as I would that they should do to me.”

This is surely a most righteous ethical code, clear, broad and simple, and in moral and logical effect it is nearer like our American Declaration of Rights than any other formula, particularly as regards the recognition of the sacred personal rights of the individual which is equivalent to the principle of “unalienable rights” in the Declaration. The phrase, “Thou shalt not touch that which is mine or remove the least thing which belongs to me without my consent,” is certainly a most righteous rule of human honesty, sanctity, justice and security which surely condemns everything like compulsory medicine which touches and violates the body with inflicted disease, without consent of the patient, and removes and destroys the most sacred possession of the individual, viz., bodily sanctity, health and life.

UNALIENABLE RIGHTS ANALYZED AND DEFINED

It will be noted that the significant words of the second article of the Declaration state that “all men” are endowed by their Creator with “certain” “unalienable rights,” among which are “life,” “liberty” and the “pursuit of happiness.” By the word “certain” is, therefore, clearly meant various, many or several rights, most of which are left unspecified or not categorically stated except where it refers to the chief or general rights of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” And it is obvious that by these expressions are clearly meant all essential natural or “unalienable” rights which are necessary to life, safety, liberty and happiness of the individual and which do not interfere with, invade or endanger the life, liberty or happiness of any other individual. The right to “life” of course stands first, and is stated first, because without life we have nothing; and the right to “liberty” is stated second, because without reasonable liberty life itself would be useless, and without ample liberty to pursue our ideas of happiness in our own ways, without infringing on the liberty or happiness of others, the right to nominal liberty might itself be useless and meaningless.

Let me now remind you, Mr. President, at this point, that all the reform we ask for in this whole matter is the very important and essential right of Medical Freedom, viz., the free right of every person to accept or reject any medical operation whatever as the citizen or patient sees fit, which is obviously an “unalienable right,” and, as I will soon show, is as clearly covered in the Constitution by direct implication as the right to religious freedom is covered by specific guarantee. And of the two it is obvious that the right to medical freedom is even more important than the right to religious freedom, and that medical compulsion is to-day a far more dangerous evil than religious compulsion ever was.

Medical compulsion is therefore not only immoral, illegal and unconstitutional, but is also contrary to all true medical ethics, which call for the absolute medical freedom and right of the patient to decide what operation is or is not to be performed on his own body and blood; and, if any doctor, or any government behind the doctor, has any sovereign right whatever to force any medication or operation on any patient, however humble, against his will, consent or desire, will some one please tell us where the doctor, or the government, got this right morally, medically or legally?

ALL POWER COMES FROM THE PEOPLE TO THE GOVERNMENT—NOT VICE VERSA

Every true American and Democrat knows, that according to our immortal Declaration of Rights and our great Constitution our Government has no rights or powers whatever except what the People have given to it and that the source of all power is in the People and comes from the People to the Government, and not vice versa, as in the Monarchic systems which we have been fighting in the Great War. Under our democratic system, government does not give any rights to the people, as in monarchic systems, but the people are endowed originally and inherently with all necessary or unalienable rights for life, liberty and happiness, and their government exists simply or chiefly for the purpose of protecting and enforcing these rights, not for granting or denying rights which exist unalienably in the people themselves.

It will therefore be found that our wonderful Constitution, as well as the Declaration, covers these fundamental points most distinctly as to inherent, unalienable rights retained by and dwelling in the people, where it states in Articles IX and X as follows:

“The enumeration in the constitution of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Here we plainly see that the Constitution, as well as the Declaration which preceded it, show that the People have a whole series of “certain” “unalienable” “reserved” and “retained” rights, and that these several rights, both specified and unspecified, are divinely conferred and naturally inherent and cannot be invaded or taken away by any government, but must be respected, defended and enforced by all governments, and that governments exist for the chief purpose of defending and enforcing these rights.

Now we might ask just here: Where and when have the People ever given up their most sacred, obvious and essential right to their choice of medical treatment and to the freedom and sanctity of their own bodies and abandoned their bodies to the doctors to seize when they see fit to inject with disease as in vaccination, to experiment on as they might wish or to operate or medicate as they might choose, without any regard to the free will, consent or desire of the patient?

As government therefore derives its “just powers” only from the “consent of the governed,” so it is obvious that doctors can derive their “just powers” to operate only from the consent of the patient; and surely the unanswerable question in the preceding paragraph shows clearly the utter barbarity and illegality of all medical compulsion not only in a basic moral, constitutional and legal sense but also from the basis of true medical ethics, which surely no true medical doctor can attempt to deny for one moment.

MEDICAL FREEDOM AN UNALIENABLE RIGHT

In conclusion, it therefore follows that the right to Medical Freedom is the clearest and most essential of the “unalienable” “retained” and “reserved” rights possessed by the People under the Declaration and the Constitution; and as these rights cannot be legally invaded or denied by any Government, it follows, therefore, that all compulsory vaccination is clearly un-American, illegal, unconstitutional, and medically barbarous and unworthy of a place on any American, military, medical, or legislative Code, and should be absolutely abolished as fit only for some Code of Prussianism—from which, as before said, it has been, in fact, copied.

COMPULSORY VACCINATION CONDEMNED BY OUR COURTS AS UNCONSTITUTIONAL

In illustration of the principles stated in preceding paragraphs, I might here cite a few decisions from our higher courts showing the outrageous illegal and unconstitutional nature of all forcible or compulsory vaccination.

Judge Bartlett, of the New York Supreme Court, in the case of Walters in 1894, decided that:

“To vaccinate a person against his will, without legal authority so to do, would be an assault.”

Judge Gaynor, of the same Court, in the case of Smith against Health Commissioner Emery of Brooklyn in 1894, gave the following important decision which was afterwards fully sustained by the New York Court of Appeals:

“If the Commissioner [of Health] had the power to imprison an individual for refusing to submit to vaccination, I see no reason why he should not also imprison one for refusing to swallow a dose. But the Legislature has conferred no such power upon him, if, indeed, it has the power to do the like.... If the Legislature desired to make vaccination compulsory it would have so enacted. Whether it be within its power to do so, and if so, by what means it may enforce such an enactment, are not for discussion here.”

Judge Woodward, of the New York Appellate Court, in the Viemeister case in 1903, declared that:

“It may be conceded that the Legislature has no constitutional right to compel any person to submit to vaccination.”

The Supreme Court of the State of Massachusetts, in the case of Jacobson in 1904, said:

“If a person should deem it important that vaccination should not be performed in his case and the authorities should think otherwise, it is not in their power to vaccinate him by force, and the worst that could happen to him under the statute would be the payment of the penalty of five dollars.”

Judge Fitts, of the Supreme Court in Columbia County, New York, in the case of Bollinger in February, 1909, charged the jury as follows:

“I charge you, gentlemen of the jury, that the courts of this State in construing the authority and power so conferred upon local health officers who are the executive members of the board or the local boards, have held that there is no warrant or authority in law for the compulsory vaccination of any individual.”

At the second trial of this case in February, 1910, Judge LeBœuf charged the jury in these words:

“Now, I have charged you that this assault which is claimed to have existed here, due to the forcible vaccination, if it was a forcible vaccination, that is, if it was against this man’s will, is one which you must consider. And the reason of that is this: This man, in the eyes of the law, just as you and I and all of us in this court-room, has the right to be let alone. We all have the right to the freedom of our persons and that freedom of our persons may not be unlawfully invaded. That is a great right. It is one of the most important rights we have.”

THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES ON THE PREËMINENT RIGHTS OF THE INDIVIDUAL

In conclusion on this most vital point, let me call your special attention, Mr. President, to a most significant and important decision of the U. S. Supreme Court in the vaccination case of Jacobson v. Massachusetts, rendered in 1905, on appeal from the Supreme Court of Massachusetts. In this long and interesting decision, one of its most clear and conclusive paragraphs emphatically declares the preëminent rights of the individual in certain spheres, as follows:

“There is, of course, a sphere within which the individual may assert the supremacy of his own will and rightfully dispute the authority of any human government, especially of any free government existing under a written constitution, to interfere with the exercise of that will.”

Now, what is this “sphere” within which this highest court in our land tells us so clearly and emphatically that “the individual may assert the supremacy of his own will and rightfully dispute the authority of any human government, especially of any free government, existing under a written constitution, to interfere with the exercise of that will”?

The context both before and after this paragraph shows clearly that this “sphere” of individual right and freedom exists wherever any unalienable or inherent natural right secured by our constitution is invaded or violated, or where any act or practice forced upon the individual is potentially or actually dangerous to the health or life of that individual, such as I have shown every act of vaccination to be, in its very nature being an act of septicemic infection or blood poisoning pure and simple, which sometimes causes wide-spread epidemics and frequently causes serious injuries and many deaths, even more deaths than smallpox itself, as has been demonstrated beyond question.

Surely, therefore, there is no individual or personal right more inherent and natural and more sacred and obvious or more surely guaranteed in Declaration and Constitution than the right to medical freedom of the body, the right to health and life and the right of the individual to select and decide freely for himself the medical treatment of his own body, and the right to guard it against any medical treatment or operation which in his own judgment and conscience may be unnecessary or undesirable or may involve great risk or suffering to himself or may seriously endanger his health or life. This right is, I think, so obvious, so fundamental and necessary and so unquestionable under the letter and spirit of our basic laws and constitution, and by the decisions of our courts as well as by all common sense, logic and ethics, that I do not think another word of argument is necessary to establish this right in the conscientious conviction of every rational mind.

DECISION OF U. S. SUPREME COURT FURTHER ANALYZED

In further consideration of the meaning and significance of this important decision of the U. S. Supreme Court it may be now explained that the law of Massachusetts here considered was a Statute passed by the Legislature requiring the vaccination of all persons, child or adult, under penalty of fine of $5 for refusing vaccination. This law made an exception for children or minors in delicate health or such physical condition as would be injured by vaccination, but made no such exception for adults like the defendant Jacobson.

The Supreme Court of the State of Massachusetts in its decision, from which this appeal was taken, had already decided, as I have shown, that the State could not enforce actual compulsory vaccination upon any person, but could only enforce the fine of $5 if vaccination was not voluntarily adopted.

The U. S. Supreme Court concluded its decision in these words:

“We now decide only that the statute covers the present case, and that nothing clearly appears that would justify this Court in holding it to be unconstitutional and inoperative in its application to the plaintiff in error.”

From this conclusion Justices Brewer and Peckham dissented, thus evidently holding that the law of Massachusetts, which inflicts a fine of $5 for refusing vaccination, was unconstitutional, whereas the majority of the Court seem to hold that this State law, which can enforce the fine but cannot compel the vaccination, was legal and constitutional, but that nevertheless this fine could not be enforced against any persons who could show that vaccination was dangerous to their health and life, and that the Courts would interfere to prevent its enforcement in all such cases and thus protect the constitutional rights of the individual within that “sphere” of preëminent individual right as already quoted.

Now it seems that the defendant Jacobson did not properly plead that vaccination was dangerous to health and life, in his own case, or offer to prove this, in his own case, and hence the decision was technically given against him, but really, in principle, for him; which decision, as we have shown, was rendered by a divided Court with two judges dissenting who evidently held that compulsory vaccination by fine, as called for in the law of Massachusetts, was unconstitutional.

We therefore believe that this decision, when properly applied, will invalidate all forms of coercive vaccination, whether by inflicted fine, or by denial of some civic right, such as public education, whenever the prosecuted case is properly tried on the correct legal pleas and issues and carried up through our highest Courts on the principles laid down in this great decision and outlined in this analysis.

UNALIENABLE RIGHTS OF THE INDIVIDUAL VERSUS RIGHTS OF MAJORITIES. FALSE IDEA OF THE SUPREMACY OF MAJORITIES SCORED

We often hear it stated that this is a government essentially of majorities and that any majority can legally and properly force its opinion or will upon any minority, no matter how objectionable to the minority this law or will of the majority might be; and that it is the clear right of the majority thus to oppress itself upon the minority and the loyal duty of the minority to yield to this oppression, however odious.

This rank idea of the supremacy of majorities is, I believe, a great legal and moral and cowardly mistake and a gross misconception of our Democratic American Government, because it entirely loses sight of the great basic principle of inherent and unalienable human rights which seems to have been first, or best, expressed in our immortal Declaration of Rights. Therefore, under this basic principle of “unalienable” right, no majorities, however powerful, can legally or morally invade or set aside any of the “unalienable” or inseparable rights of the People, as this is obviously the clear significance and meaning of the terms “unalienable rights,” as I have already shown. Hence this fundamental American principle of “unalienable rights” calls in trumpet tones from the lines of the Declaration and Constitution and gives this warning to all majorities, however powerful: “Thus far shalt thou go but no farther, and here must thy power be stayed”—that is, stayed at the approach to every sacred inherent and unalienable right of the individual necessary to the life, liberty, health and happiness of the individual.

We have often heard the phrase quoted, “This is a government of laws and not of men,” which is only another way of stating what I am here contending for, viz., that this Government of Americanism is not based essentially on mere numbers or majorities of “men,” but chiefly on naturally or divinely ordained principles or “laws” of eternal human right and justice, and, more particularly and essentially, on the great basic American law or principle of “Unalienable Rights” of the People, which is the great American “Sanctuary” of Liberty and Right that no majority or minority can invade or profane.

Majorities can, of course, properly prevail over minorities in all matters that are purely selective or elective or which can be determined only by preponderating vote, but cannot prevail over any defined or established inherent, unalienable or constitutional right of the individual, and it has often been well said that Constitutions are made especially to protect minorities, and not majorities, who already have the preponderant political and legislative power in their hands and do not need such protection.

MEDICAL FREEDOM AND ALIMENTARY FREEDOM ARE EQUALLY UNALIENABLE RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE AND NECESSARY FOR HUMAN LIFE, LIBERTY AND HAPPINESS

We have already seen how compulsory medicine is a gross violation of the American principle of Unalienable Rights and need say nothing further on that point here; but, as the exposure and condemnation of one evil may show us the way to suppress another and similar evil, so it may be excusable for us to digress here for a moment from our main subject and call attention to the fact that the same moral, legal and logical principles against Compulsory Medicine apply equally to that latest dangerous invasion of the unalienable rights of the people involved in the extraordinary scheme of National Prohibition or Compulsory Abstinence in certain foods and drinks recently forced upon the people by what is alleged to be a majority of the voters of this country. Now, I do not believe that any majority of our voters have ever approved either compulsory medicine or compulsory abstinence, but, on the contrary, that these errors have been forced upon the people by audacious, well organized and arrogant minorities who have temporarily gotten control of political and legislative power and have deceived the public mind with the alleged necessity, utility and righteousness of these oppressive errors. But even if it can be shown that a majority of our voters approve either of these errors, such alleged majorities would be morally and legally unjustified in overriding any inherent right of the people under our basic American doctrine and law of Unalienable Rights.

I intend to treat, in a separate article, this important subject of Alimentary Freedom, in certain fermented foods and drinks, as an unalienable right of the people, established by world-wide and age-long usage and by the highest civic, moral, legal and religious sanctions, and need give no further attention to that special subject here.[3]

MEDICAL DESPOTISM WORSE THAN RELIGIOUS DESPOTISM. THE OLD RELIGIOUS HERESY, “LET US SIN THAT GRACE MAY ABOUND,” COMPARED WITH THE MODERN VACCINATION FANATICISM, “LET US FORCE AND SPREAD DISEASE UPON THE PEOPLE SO THAT HEALTH MAY ABOUND!”

In the past centuries, before our great American Institutions of Civil and Religious Liberty were established, it was the Doctors of Divinity who were wholly responsible for inventing and maintaining that great evil of Compulsory Religion, where one type of religion or one conception of Deity was forced on the whole population under penalty of torture, disfigurement, mutilation, or death; and these misguided men seem to have actually had the absurd and diabolical idea—incredible to us to-day—that by this mutilation and murder they could increase the sum total of morality in the whole community!

In a similar way, our modern doctors of medicine and our medical societies are wholly responsible for inventing and enforcing the horrible medical scheme of compulsory disease, and with a similar logic that, by thus forcing these vaccine operations and diseases on the whole population, they can greatly increase the sum total of health in the whole community!

This dogma of compulsory disease is, of course, just as false and evil as the dogma of compulsory religion; but, of the two evils, compulsory disease is far more dangerous to human right and safety, health and life, and it would probably not be difficult to prove that where one person was mutilated or murdered by compulsory religion in the barbarous past, ten are now injured or killed by the modern medical barbarism of compulsory disease.

There was an old sect of heretics about the time of the Reformation which seemed to have a poor idea of the value of personal virtue and good works in salvation as compared with mere dogma, “grace,” and “faith,” and whose motto seemed to be: “The more sin, the more grace,” or “Let us sin that grace may abound.” Now, this seems to be very similar to the doctrine of the coercive vaccinators of to-day, which appears to be simply and literally this: “The more disease we inflict, the more health we create,” or “Let us inflict and spread disease widely upon the people so that health may correspondingly abound.”

A striking example of the evil effects of this dangerous vaccine doctrine in recent times is found in the case of Japan, whose awful record in vaccination and smallpox and in epidemic disease transmitted by vaccine virus is exposed in the next paragraphs.

AWFUL RECORD OF JAPAN IN VACCINATION AND SMALLPOX AND IN EPIDEMIC DISEASE CAUSED BY VACCINE VIRUS, AS GIVEN IN U. S. GOVERNMENT REPORTS

Japan has been perhaps the most extensively vaccinated country in recent times, with most rigid compulsory laws, copied from Germany, which require re-vaccination at different periods of infant and adult life. Now vaccination, as I have already shown, is simply one of the varied forms of smallpox, being an artificially propagated or cultivated form of the disease involving human smallpox and cowpox combined, and is often more dangerous and deadly than the natural disease. This being the fact, what therefore should we expect to result from the dangerous practice of impregnating the blood of a whole population with repeated inoculations of the virus of human smallpox and cow disease? Should we logically expect anything else but that epidemics of smallpox and cow disease should break out in due time in such a generally vaccinated and infected population, and that vaccine or cow disease should be extended to other populations wherever the virus made from human and cow diseases should be carried and used?

This logical expectation is what seems to have actually happened in the case of much-vaccinated Japan, and instead of being made immune from smallpox epidemics by general vaccination and re-vaccination—which is one of the positive claims made by vaccinators—Japan, on the contrary, seems to have suffered from the worst epidemics of smallpox known in modern times, not only worse than in poorly vaccinated countries like England and the United States, but worse than experienced in old times before the days of vaccination!

This conclusion seems to be fully proved from the U. S. Public Health Reports for September 2, 1910, which give this frightful record of smallpox epidemics in Japan for several years past. The population of Japan at that time, 1910, was about 48 millions, and the high waves in the epidemics in the preceding ten years were as follows: In 1898 there were 149,012 smallpox cases with 40,971 deaths, mortality 27½ per cent.; in 1905 there were 10,704 cases with 3,388 deaths, mortality 31½ per cent., and in 1908 there were 18,075 cases with 5,835 deaths, mortality 32½ per cent.

These figures, considering the vaccinal conditions existing in Japan, under most rigid compulsory laws, are surely terribly significant, to say the least, and fully shatter the fallacious vaccine doctrine that vaccination is the only effective remedy against smallpox and that it always lowers the mortality in epidemics! Per contra, here we see from these official U. S. Health Reports that in this much-vaccinated population there was not only a series of severe epidemics with a very high mortality, but a constantly ascending mortality from 27½ per cent. in 1898 to 31½ per cent. in 1905 and 32½ per cent. in 1908! Whereas the usual mortality given by good authorities in old times before the days of vaccination was only 15 to 20 per cent.! See “History of Smallpox” by Dr. James Moore, Jenner’s chief assistant, London, 1815, page 243.

Now I believe that there is no country in modern times, whether vaccinated or unvaccinated, which has shown worse epidemics of smallpox than much-vaccinated Japan, as above shown from official data, whereas the epidemics within the same period in the poorly vaccinated countries of England and the United States have been small in comparison. Surely, therefore, our “Yankees of the Orient” seem to have copied some of our antique medical barbarisms even more fully than they have copied our real modern improvements. And, surely, poorly vaccinated England is much better off with less vaccination and more sanitation when its Minister of Health, Hon. John Burns, can publicly declare in Parliament on April 12, 1911, that, “Just in proportion as, in recent years, exemptions from vaccination have gone up from 4 per cent. to 30 per cent., so deaths from smallpox have declined.” This also is the experience of Leicester, the sanitary English city, unvaccinated for the past 30 years, as previously shown at page 22; and such, I believe, will be the result wherever that irrational system of inflicting disease to produce health is abandoned and the rational system of sanitation and hygiene is adopted in its place.

JAPANESE VIRUS CAUSES EPIDEMICS OF CATTLE PLAGUE IN MANKIND AND ANIMALS

Not only, therefore, has general compulsory vaccination failed to protect Japan from some of the worst smallpox epidemics known in modern or olden times, as just shown, but, what is perhaps still more damning, it is proved by U. S. Government Reports, quoted on pages 95 and 99, that Japanese vaccination was the source of the deadly epidemics of Cattle Plague, known as “Foot and Mouth Disease,” which afflicted both animals and mankind in the United States in 1902 and 1908, this dangerous infection being imported in vaccine virus from Japan and used by two of the largest makers of virus in the United States. See Year Book, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, 1914, page 21. See also page 99 in Supplement. These epidemics raged in several of our States, as previously shown, and caused the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of animals, an unknown amount of human mortality, and a loss of millions of dollars to the Government and people of this country. Surely such awful results from Japanese vaccination are a shocking mockery and a stinging rebuke to all vaccination as an alleged “health” remedy and call loudly for the abolishment of all compulsory vaccination as a most dangerous public evil and a flagrant violation of vital human rights to Medical Freedom, Sanity and Safety.

MEDICAL FREEDOM NECESSARY FOR MEDICAL PROGRESS, MEDICAL TRUTH AND HUMAN SAFETY

As we now enjoy the great Democratic Institution of a Free Church in a Free State, with all church control of government and all compulsory or forced religion prohibited, so, in the near future, we must bring about an equally important reform for human welfare in preventing all medical control of our departments of government, in securing true medical freedom and prohibiting all compulsory medicine as effectually as all compulsory religion and church control of government is now prohibited. And as full freedom for all religious sects, in religious matters, has surely brought about an undoubted advance in religious progress and in true religion and morality throughout the world, so it is sure that full medical freedom will bring about a similar increase in true medical progress and efficiency throughout the world.

Now in this most important reform of Medical Freedom I want to say at this point that I hold no brief for any school of medicine or religion, but what I contend for, as an American citizen, is something broader, more inclusive, more American, and more important for public right, health and safety than any one religious or medical doctrine, and that is a full Medical Freedom for all the people to adopt any honest or sincere doctrine or system of medicine which they may prefer, and a free public field for the exercise of this doctrine or system without any harassment or oppression from any other system of medicine which may falsely and foolishly think itself specially ordained to control the whole field of medicine. And just as we now enjoy a full constitutional guarantee for Religious Freedom, which prevents any one sect from infringing on the conscientious liberty of another, so we must have a full Medical Freedom with an equal guarantee which will give all honest or reasonable medical doctrines free scope and prevent any medical doctrine or practice whatever from being forced on any person against free will and consent, and which will recognize the full right of the individual to adopt any preferred system of medical treatment, whether with or without prayer and faith, with or without drugs and medicines, or with or without vaccines or serums.

This broad medical freedom for all systems of medicine is absolutely necessary for true medical progress itself, for only by testing these different medical theories and practices side by side freely in every-day experience and on a wide scale can the real truth and virtue of any particular doctrine or practice be determined. A great modern doctor uttered a most important truth on this head when he said that “He is the best doctor who knows the uselessness and dangers of the greatest number of remedies.” And the best way of finding out the uselessness, danger or virtue of any remedies is to try them carefully and freely side by side. And this free use and disuse of alleged remedies side by side in contrast or competition will ultimately sift out and condemn whatever is really evil or useless more effectually and justly than any drastic compulsion or dogmatic suppression could possibly do, thus making the best and surest contribution to true medical progress, safety and efficiency.