The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-04-20


 cision of this one physician, on the 18th
 of September, and again on the 25th
 of September, she sent or caused to be
 sent, specimens of her sputum. taken
 in the morning, in accordance with the
 rule, to Dr. Albert, the bacteriologist of the Iowa State Board of Health, and in both instances his certificates of analysis were returned with the statement that no tubercular bacilli were found.
 These conclusive evidences were pre- sented to MT. Thomas, the secretary of the State Board of Health. but they were not sufficient to move him. And so, on a subsequent date, this harassed woman went to the expense of going personally to Dr. Albert. who, after giving her a thorough and painstaking g physical examination, confirmed the conclusions to which he had previously arrived by the examination of her Spu- tum.
 Then Thomas reluctantly ordered her reinstatement in her position in the public schools, but that he had only temporarily abandoned the trail of this poor woman became manifest in a few weeks, when, under date of Dec. and the great seal of the State Board of Health of Iowa, there came auto cratic order to this woman, happy in her surcease of trouble, stating that she was again suspected of having tu- berculosis and directing her to desist from further attendance upon the pub nc SCnOOlS OL dIlu dll OtIei schools. public and private, until she could furnish the State Board of Health with satisfactory evidence that she was free from said disease.
 Bowed and broken in spirit, Miss Stanley again relinquished her posi- tion, but the good people of Charlton were by this time thoroughly aroused and they gave her such consolation as they could by assuring her that if there was any way on earth to estab- fish her innocence, it should not be lacking.
 Coming the order of her condemna- ton, they read therein that "satisfac- tory evidence of her freedom from disease must he furnished the Iowa State Board of Health before its order would be cancelled Satisfactory evil dencei They would furnish it if they had to go to the end of the world for it. Plainly the evidence of the boards own bacteriologist was not sufficient but there were other and greater bac- teriologiStS than he.
 At Chicago there reside two of the recognized meteorological experts of the world, Dr. B. Fletcher Ingalls, and pr. Sacks, men whose names are known from ocean to ocean. This as- certained, Miss Stanley was packed off to Chicago, where these two great men of science gave her a thorough physi- cal examination, as well as making critical examinations of her sputum. They found no evidence of tuberculo- $,
 Armed with the certificates provid- ed by these experts, Miss Stanley's at torney waited upon the secretary of the board, only to be disdainfully in formed that they were no account be- cause the examinations were made without the authority of the board. The secretary insisted that there must be a hearing before the full board, and that was held last Wednesday, behind closed doors. What the decision of the hndU I do know I cannot find out.
 A reporter called upon the secretary yesterday to learn what had been done in the matter and he was impudently informed that while a decision has been reached, he (the secretary was too busy to tell him what it was. Ru- nor has it. however. that more exami- nations will be required in Miss Stan ley's case.
 Perhaps it is hoped that she may be worried into contracting tuberculosis if her persecution is continued long enough. and thus the board receive complete vindication. Such a thing might happen. At any rate, accord Charlton, Miss Stanley is on the verge of collapse, unable to eat or sleep on account of the unrelentless and fiend- ish persecution to which she is being
 Representative Charles W. Miller, in commenting on the above atrocity, in the Waverly Democrat Qowa). says:
 You wonder that such things are But they are permitted and this is but one case. Tyranny breeds fast. Give men absolute power and sooner or. later they will abuse it. The Iowa State Board of Health has absolute power and in a. greater degree than many people realize. The Legislature has vested in it more power than is given the Governor and all the courts combined-made of it a. legislative, an executive and judicial body. It has the power to legislate. prosecute. judge and condemn, and from its decision in the case of Miss Stanley there can be no appeal under the law as it now exists.
 "A man wrongfully accused of crime can seek redress and generally gets it, but poor weak woman, with the ban of the Board of Health upon her-a ban that shuts her out of her only means of livelihood and causes her to be summed by her most sympathizing friends, placing her, in fact. in a po- sition that the most abject criminal would not exchange for his own-has no hope of vindication except that which may come from the autocratic body that condemned her. No hope, I said-yea, but there Is one. The Legis- lature that is now in session is made and when they gain a full of the deviltry that is going on in this State under the name of the public health. I doubt not that they will apply a remedy, and a very drastic one.
 '"The awful power that the Legisla- ture has vested in the State Board of Health and the villainous way in which this power is being abused is demonstrated in the manner in which the big, hulking men of which it is composed are camping like a Ne mesis upon the trail of Hattie Stanley, ! poor little inoffensive school teacher at Charlton, Ia., who, for some mex plicable reason. has been marked for their persecution.
 Ut is story so atrocious that, were its scenes laid in Russia, the people of Iowa would be circulating petitions asking the president, in the cauNe of humanity. to exert his kindly offices with the Czar in behalf of the innocent victim. But this happens in Iowa. land of vaunted enlightenment and fairness. It happens under the very noses of those chosen of its people to resent tyranny and uphold our rights nd liberties It ha ppenS in fhe States