Part 3

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.”