Los Angeles herald., 1905-03-09
VETOES ANTI
VACCINATION BILL
PARDEE EXPLAINS WHY HE
OPPOSES MEASURE
He Believes That Safeguard Against
Smallpox Should Be Made Con.
dition Precedent to Admission
to Public Schools

BY Associated Press.
SACRAMENTO, March s.-Governor
Pardee today sent a message to the
senate vetoing Senator Leavitt's bill to
prevent vaccination being made con-
dltion precedent to admission to the
public schools. The message, which
contains nearly 1900 words, is in part
as follows:
II speak as one familiar by training
and education with the subject matter
when l say that the vast preponderanco
of expert medical authority through
out the civilized world asserts that
vaccination is the prime cause of the
practical disappearance of smallpox
one of the most dreaded and dreadful
diseases of pre-vaccination times
from communities protected by 1t. Un-
der its benefcent protection the deci-
mating epidemics which formerly
swept through Europe have very
modified by vaccination, has now, to
a great extent lost its terrors in the
minds of those who have neither Wit
messed nor suffered from its devasta-
tions.
Before the discovery and applica-
ton by the immortal Jenner the dis
ease was nearly universal, and it was
considered to be a grave disadvantage
not to have had smallpox in child
hood. Severe and terrible epidemics
have gradually but surely become
things of the past, except where from
any cause vaccination has been neg
lected.
"That accidents of many kinds, even
death, may follow vaccination is not
and cannot be denied But that the
number of these accidents, compared
to the many, many thousands-even
millions-of times which this beneficent
procedure is practiced, is anything but
infnitesmal is not borne out by the
facts.
"Tetanus, or lockjaw, not infrequent-
ly follows injuries of various kinds,
slight wounds, even scratches being
followed, if infected with the specific
bacillus by the disease. Such cases,
not following vaccination, are not
looked upon with the horror that fol-
lows an infected vaccination scratch
which may, like any other abrasion,
be followed by lockjaw.
when vaccination is compulsory
and the law is well administered, there
is but little smallpox; so little that
al r nn,ita
lose their fear of the dread disease.
And turning their attention to the les
ser evils of the vaccine virus, many of
us conjure a fear, not warranted by
facts, against the very thing that saves
us from a much worse fate.
"And this, think, is what has called
into being the bill which L now return
to you unsigned. Were 1t to become
law, there can be no doubt that vac
cination would soon fall into practical
disuse. And thus would be prepared
among our children (not mine; for they
shall always be protected) a field for
smallpox to fairly revel in.
"The only thing at issue here and
now in this bill, it seems to me, is
whether or not the state shall or shall
not reverse it's present pro-vaccina-
ton policy and assume what this bill
practically provides for, no-vaccina-
ton policy. have no hesitancy what
ever in saying that in my judgment it
would be a sad mistake for the state
to thus change front on this most i'm
portant natter
BY vote of % to the senate this
afternoon refused to pass Leavitt3
bill over the gov
ernor's veto.