Chapter 14

THE WORK OF REFORM SOCIETIES

It is necessary to make a distinction between societies aiming to destroy animal experimentation, root and branch, and those which hope only to prevent abuses and cruelties. Antivivisection societies have been organized in different States. Of their activities it is not necessary here to speak. But another kind of organization has made its appearance, societies aiming solely at the prevention of abuse and the restriction of the practice within limits compatible with humane ideals.

The first society in America organized for the express purpose of prevention of cruelty in animal experimentation appears to have been the American Antivivisection Society, founded at Philadelphia in 1883. The object of the society, as defined by its first charter, was "the restriction of the practice of vivisection within proper limits, and the prevention of the injudicious and needless infliction of suffering upon animals under the pretence of medical or scientific research." To Mrs. Caroline Earle White of Philadelphia, more than to any other, was due the credit of bringing this first society of protest into being over thirty years ago.

It was believed by the founders of this society that the medical profession--so many members of which had recognized the reality of the abuses and the necessity of reform--would join in some common endeavor to restrict and to regulate the practice. But attempts in direction of any legislation met with decided opposition from the principal laboratories in the State, and although a few physicians of eminence lent their influence to the promotion of reform, the great body of medical practitioners stood aloof. And gradually the founders of the society came to believe that their position was wrong; that the policy of concession and compromise ought to be abandoned, and that instead of asking that any experimentation be legalized, the society should demand the total abolition of all experiments upon living animals.

At a meeting held in 1887 a resolution was brought forward favouring the change of the name of the society and the aim which hitherto they had had in view. Opposition merely to experiments of a painful character was not sufficient; from that time forward every phase of experimentation was equally to be condemned. The resolution was carried. And now for more than a quarter of a century the society has striven to influence public sentiment in favour of its ideal, the total suppression of all scientific experiment upon living animals, whether painful or otherwise. It is needless to say that they have done this in the face of innumerable obstacles, and doubtless with a recognition of the impossiblity of present success. Three times they have introduced into the Legislature of the State of Pennsylvania a Bill for some restriction of animal experimentation, and always without avail.

Other antivivisection societies in different parts of the country, adopting the same ideal, were organized shortly afterward. So far as legislation is concerned, their efforts have met with uniform failure. They have succeeded, however, in keeping the subject before the world in making known the abuses of the practice and voicing a condemnation of its cruelties wherever discerned. I have elsewhere expressed the opinion that, even if their ideals are beyond present possibility of attainment, the constant, persistent, and unwearied protest of these societies against the cruelties and abuses of vivisection have helped, more than anything else, to keep the question a living issue.

In 1896 was organized the first society having for its object solely the repression of abuse, the American Society for the Regulation of Vivisection. Its object was distinctly stated in its title, and its work was confined almost entirely to the publication of literature. In 1903 the Vivisection Reform Society, organized to advance the same moderate views, was incorporated under United States laws, and the earlier society became merged therein. The president was Dr. David H. Cochran of Brooklyn, a distinguished educator, and the secretary, upon whose shoulders fell nearly all the work of the organization, was Sydney Richmond Taber, Esq., a member of the legal profession. Among its supporters were Cardinal Gibbons, Professor Goldwin Smith, Senator Gallinger, Professor John Bascom, ex-President of the University of Wisconsin, Professor William James of Harvard University, and men of standing and influence in the medical and legal professions. For several years its work was carried on with efficiency and enthusiasm, chiefly by the propaganda of the press. It has always seemed to me that the name of the society was especially felicitous, for it expressed tersely the object of the organization, not the abolition of all scientific utilization of animal life, but the repression and elimination of abuse. A year or two later there was incorporated at Washington the National Society for the Humane Regulation of Vivisection, the objects of which were identical with those of the earlier societies. For many reasons it did not appear expedient to keep in activity two societies with precisel the same objects, and into the new organization the Vivisection Reform Society was finally merged.

Another American society which has done particularly good work is the Vivisection Investigation League of New York. The object of this association is fairly expressed by its name; it seeks to investigate the practice, so far as inquiry is practicable, and to make known from the writings of experimenters themselves exactly what is done in the name of scientific research. In this direction the League has already done work of exceptional value and interest.

An organization which more than any other has distinguished itself for persistent, unwearied, and vigorous attempts to secure reform by legal enactment is the Society for the Prevention of Abuse in Animal Experimentation, organized in Brooklyn, New York, in 1907.[1] From the first it repudiated the suggestion that it was opposed to scientific experimentation upon animals under all circumstances; it has never denied that some benefits have accrued through animal experimentation, even though such benefits have been exaggerated, but it has bent all its energies toward securing such legislation in the State of New York as should limit the practice to competent men, place it under such legal control, render its abuse a misdemeanour, and all unnecessary and wanton cruelty a legal offence. Bills were therefore introduced for the appointment of a Commission of inquiry regarding the extent and nature of the practice at each annual session of the Legislature. Some of these Bills were reported out of the Committee, and one reached debate in the Senate. But investigation of the practice was precisely what the supporters of the modern laboratory do not seem to desire. They were strong enough to influence the Legislature against such inquiry, and their attempts to open the laboratory have so far failed. Will it be possible for ever to maintain this secrecy? That is the question for the future.

[1] To the discriminating and energetic work of Frederic P. Bellamy, Esq., the counsel of the society, and of Mrs. William Vanamee, the secretary, the success of this society is particularly indebted. In the public journals, on many occasions, they have definitely and comprehensively outlined the aims of the organization, and in this respect there has been no excuse whatever for any misunderstanding or misstatement.

In its early efforts to secure investigation an attempt was made by this society to secure the co-operation of members of the medical profession, and in union with a large number of persons belonging to various professions over seven hundred physicians in the State of New York signed a petition in 1907-08 in favour of a measure that would have tended to elicit the facts. As soon as the Medical Society of the State of New York became aware of this endorsement, it sent out to each of these physicians a request that he would withdraw his name. What Dr. William James called "the power of club influence to quell independence of mind" could hardly have been more significantly exercised, yet less than forty signers were willing to accede to such demand. Upon the files of the society are now the signatures of over six hundred physicians in the State who have favoured legislation restricting the practice of vivisection to competent men, and providing against cruelty and abuse.

In the fall of 1911 the Society circulated a petition throughout the State. It asked the Legislature of the State of New York to provide--

"an immediate and impartial investigation by a non-partisan commission into the practice of animal experimentation as conducted in this State. In view of the inherent possibility of cruelty in the practice, and the obvious inadequacy of the existing laws to prevent such cruelty, we deem the existing status of vivisection in this State to be a menace to the community, which calls for legislative investigation."

To this petition more than twelve thousand signatures were obtained. Again the influence of the laboratory was effective in preventing the Legislature from granting the investigation desired.

Some of the most scholarly editorials which have appeared in the newspaper press in favour of inquiry have been those of Hon. St. Clair McKelway, the Chancellor of the Board of Regents of the State of New York and editor of the Brooklyn Eagle, the leading evening newspaper in the United States. Referring to one of the Bills introduced by the Society for the Prevention of Abuse in Animal Experimentation, Dr. McKelway said:

"The Bill ought to be passed. It would secure an unpaid representative Commission to investigate animal vivisection, protecting it from abuses, and allowing it to be properly pursued within safeguards of necessity and mercy.... The regulation of vivisection is not the abolition of it, but the civilization of it. Such of the medical profession as are a Trade Union on a large scale, as afraid of one another as they are deaf to the voices of humanity and to public opinion, should be forced by the State to courses that should long ago have been volunteered by themselves. The beginning of the end of licensed cruelty has come. The struggle may still take time, but the time will be well spent and the result is as certain as the triumph of every other benign movement for the Kingdom of God in the hearts of men and in the laws of the State."

Of another bill introduced by this society, Chancellor McKelway wrote:

"The Society for the Prevention of Abuse in Animal Experimentation necessarily has an awkwardly long name; necessarily, to state just what the Society is, and to show just what it is not. It is not to prevent animal experimentation, but only to prevent the abuse of it. It is not an antivivisection body, ut it is a body to control the work of vivisection within the confines of actual necessity, and to bring the work under accountability to law as affected by a relation to reason, to humanity, and to the mercy which is mightiest in the mighty, and which becomes a State more than its sovereignty, and a monarch more than his crown.

"The Legislature again has before it a Bill to bring animal experimentation, or the infliction of pain on animals, in the interest of the treatment of human beings, within law and under responsibility to law. Not for the first time is this Bill brought. It will be brought again and again until the Bill becomes law. The instinct of mercy and justice backs this measure and annually augments its supporters. That instinct will not become extinct until God abdicates or creation reverts to chaos. The movement is on the gaining hand. Doubt of its eventual and nearing success is unthinkable, for in its favour are all the forces that maintain and advance justice and mercy in the hearts of men and in the action of States.

"State-regulated vivisection should be differentiated from antivivisection or from no vivisection, just as civilized and necessary war should be from the impossible abolition of all war. Between reulation and prohibition is a difference. Between responsibility and wantonness is a difference. Yet regulated vivisection has been confounded with antivivisection by the union of zany cranks and trade-unionized men of medicine, who have not refrained from the coercion of patients, from the deception of the public, from the inoculation of legislators with mendacity, capsuled in sophistry, and from the direct or indirect corruption or intimidation of not a few public journals. The discovery of the ways and means and men is bringing the evil to an end.

"That discovery coincides with the arousal of the public conscience against political corruption, party corruption, and interparty as well as intraparty bribery and tyranny. There is accord between all the forces for betterment. Barbarism and cruelty toward the brute creation are as certainly doomed as polygamy and human slavery were. The needs of surgery will be preserved from wanton slaughter in the name of surgery, in times past, and now wrought by men called doctors and by cub-boys called students. The statesmen in politics are realizing this. The demagogues and opportunists in Legislatures are, too. So are the men of mercy, conscience, and vision in medicine itself. The impact of banded pretension in trade-unionized medical schools and societies is resented and resisted by teachers and practitioners, who are becoming ashamed not to be free, and who are abetting those who would free them.

"There is a good time coming around the whole circle of uplift. The time will not be long coming; but when it shall come, its duration will have no end, and its progress will be perpetual."[1]

[1] Editorial, Brooklyn Eagle, April 4, 1910.

It is an interesting fact that the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, founded by Henry Bergh, the first organization of its kind in America, joined in the demand for further investigation. Under the heading, "The Facts Demanded," the editor of its periodical makes known its position regarding vivisection:

"The above caption defines the attitude of the Society to-day toward the practice of `animal experimentation.' In the common phrase, `we want to know,' and we are not to be deterred from what we believe to be a duty by being told from sources more or less reputable that it is none of our business. For many years this Society has been the chief representative in this country and in this city of that large class among our people who feel and cherish an interest in and a sense of humanity for what are called the `dumb animals.' One great life--that of the founder, Henry Bergh--was spent in this service, and prematurely sacrificed in his devotion to these interests. With faults and failures to reach his ideal, with stumbles and falls, freely admitted, but with a persistent purpose to attain it in the end, this Society has never faltered in its effort to follow the path where he had blazed the way. It has never been seriously accused of acting from fear or favour or from other than altruistic motives, and by so doing it has gained and kept the confidence and respect of a great part of what is best in our community. It is far too late in the day for any newspaper or anay group of citizens, no matter how influential in the one case or highly respected in the other, to say to this Society: `You shall not do the work for which you were chartered, and which for forty-five years you have performed in this community.'

"Now, what is that work in the present instance? Expressed in its simplest terms, it is a demand that the practice of animal experimentation shall be investigated by the State to determine what is actually being done, and that thereafter legislation shall be had that shall place it under such supervision and restriction as shall insure differentiation between scientific investigation performed for wise and adequate ends and purposes on the one hand, and on the other acts of a painful and brutal character performed from unworthy motives, with no adequate benefit possible as a resultant, and which clearly come within the classification of cruelty.

"We submit that this is an eminently fair proposal, and one that should not be opposed by any friend of scientific work, and least of all by the physicians of this city. Yet what do we find? The attitude of that profession is clearly shown by the letter of Mr. Bergh, which we reproduce in our columns, and which will unquestionably receive credence from its frankness and from the eminent name attached to it, now borne by a worthy and devoted descendant of our first president.

"The attitude of the medical profession on this subject is this: `We know what we are about.' `We practice vivisection for wise purposes.' `We surround it with as humane conditions as the object sought will permit.' `We have made great and beneficial discoveries by its means.' `We assert that we con trol it within the above limits.' `But we will not state what we do, or how.' `We will not permit our assertions to be verified if we can help it.' `We will oppose any movement in the Press or the Legislature looking to this end.' `And we will encourage the Press to defeat such an effort, not only by ridicule and irony but by a definite misrepresentation of the motives and views of the Society that seeks "to know."'

"We do not at this moment question the truth of the assertions as to the practice and control which we have put (accurately, we think) into the mouths of the medical profession; but it is startlingly evident that these assertions can only apply TO THAT PART OF ANIMAL EXPERIMENTATION WHICH THEY PRACTICE OR CONTROL. What of the other part? Will those who champion unrestricted, uninvestigated, unsuperintended vivisection assert that they will guarantee to the people of this city that no act of cruelty or wantonness is or ever shall be committed here by a medical practitioner under the guise of scientific investigation? Will they guarantee that such acts are not, and never shall be, committed in this State? Will they guarantee the humanity and the practice of the thousands of medical students who annually graduate from the colleges? Will they enter into bonds to the community for the acts of those who, from time to time, they expel, for cause from the medical societies? Will they place their own great reputations and highly esteemed characters behind, and as vouchers for, many a practitioner with whom they would not meet in consultation, and whom they would not allow to practice or malpractice in the house of a friend or a patient? We think not--we KNOW they would not, for such endorsements and guarantees would be impossible of fulfilment. And if they will not and cannot, they wshould cease to stand between the society that seeks `to know' and the evils it seeks to expose and eliminate.

"Gentlemen of the medical profession, understand once for all that this Society does not seek to abolish vivisection. It recognizes the good, the great good, that has and that may come to the human race from its careful, humane, and scientific use. But it aims to abolish its ABUSES, and in that aim it is entitled to your advice and co-operation."

Enough has been given to indicate the purpose of the present movement for vivisection reform. It is not the same as antivivisection, and although it has been persistently misrepresented as such by the advocates of unrestricted freedom in the physiological laboratory, perhaps we have no reason to expect from that quarter any other course. Yet in expressing appreciation both of purpose and accomplishment, it may perhaps be well to suggest a single caution. The time is probably coming when those who have most persistently opposed all appeals for more light concerning vivisection will announce willingness to accede to the public demnad, provided the vivisector may himself appoint the investigators, and define the limitations of the inquiry. It needs but little discernment to foresee that an inquiry so conducted may be no better than a farce, and conduce to no real change in the present obscurity. To be of any value the commission of inquiry regarding vivisection must be so intelligent regarding all phases of the practice that it shall know how to penetrate to hidden recesses, where things not desired to be revealed shall be concealed; capable, too, of distinguishing between the work of the expert scientist and that of the ignorant and careless student, untouched, it may be, by any sense of pity or compassion for the creature in its power. The greatest cruelties may yet be found, not in the laboratory of the investigator, but in that of the demonstrator of well-known facts. Perhaps no investigation of the practice of vivisection can be expected until public opinion shall have been educated to demand it, and then, in point of thoroughness, let us trust it may leave nothing to be desired. Meantime the work of agitation for reform must continue; no matter how slight the accomplishment, surely something is done. "All work," said Carlyle, "is as seed sown; it growns and spreads, AND SOWS ITSELF ANEW, and so in endless palingenesia lives and works."