Evening star., 1938-03-24
Replies to Jay Franklin
On SOcialized Medicine
To tho Editor of The Star:

Your sophomore columnist, Mr.. Frank
lin, asks what he should call the ma
jority Of members of the organized
medical fraternity of the District Of Co.
lumbia. This is the first instance that
I have known where an immature mind
could not find name with which to
abuse somebody. 1t is especially odd, be-
cause most Of his half-baked, tax-eating,
so-called "reformer" friends in Washing
ton could doubtless help him out The
supply of mud seems to be inexhaustible,
even though it has been pretty well
drained during the past six years. So
we'll refer him to the specialists.
He wakes eloquent about rights" and
progress and reactionaries and so forth,
yet is apparently too "intellectuap to
realize that these terms, being entirely
relative in nature, mean nothing unless
they are defined If he means legal
rights, he has something to learn; If he
means moral rights, he must define his
moral code; If he means human rights"
he should stipulate at what point hu-
man desires become rights. Before we
can discuss progress" with him, we
must know not only where he plans to
go, but how he plans to get there. The
I'VE planned it this way boys seem to
be in spot these days.
The medical profession needs no
champion against the charge OF deny
ing the poor" If physicians were not
primarily interested in relieving human
suffering they would not be in medicine.
They would be selling bonds, or singing
psalms from the foot Of Sixteenth street,
or maybe writing columns
But how about our preaching the
orists who, while shedding crocodile
tears for the underprivileged and the
poor, would now sell them one more
gold brick? That gold brick is state
medicine. These know it alls" would
harness the American people with an
other great bureaucracy. The plums
would be traded for votes, graft and I'm
f1uence." the best ward-heelers would
have the responsible positions and the
patient would become the goat. Look
around at some of Mr.. Franklin's fellow
philosophers in public office. I notice
that they manage to get along pretty
we'll True, they shout up and down
the country about the low average in
come of suffering humanity, but does
one of them live on that average income
himself and give the balance to the
poor? Not so you'd notice it. What do
they do for the underprivileged? They
ask for raises, send their children to
private schools, live in $4,000 houses,
float about with the rich, make speeches
and live of the taxpayer. Some of their
friends write columns. When. oh when,
will the American people awake to the
fact that lot of adolescents, full of
imported "isms," are trying the "old
Shell game" on them?
The fact is that members of the medi-
cal fraternity, besides desiring to make
a modest living, even as Mr.. Franklin
are striving to provide the best medical
service to the greatest number of people.
Some of them, possibly enormously,
suspect certain movements of being de-
signed as step toward state medicine.
The problem of medical care is by no
means solved, but most physicians are
convinced that the art of medicine is
best kept away from a hijacking crowd
Of politicians whose hands are already
deeply buried in the taxpayers pockets.
Organized medicine does not wish to
deny the poor" anything. Thousands
OF free clinics throughout the country
testify to this. 1t does, however, wish
to care for them and to protect them.
/. COOPER