GRAFT AND FAILUREPHOBIA.
The Commercial Spirit--Commercialism in Medicine--Stock Company
Medical Colleges--Graft in Medicines, Drugs and Nostrums--Encyclopedia
Graft--"Get-Rich-Quick" Propositions--Paradoxes in Character of
Shysters--Money Madness--Professional Failurephobia--The Fortunate Few
and the Unfortunate Many--A Cause of Quackery--The Grafter's
Herald--The World's Standard--Solitary Confinement--The Prisoner's
Dream--Working up a Cough--Situation Appalling Among St. Louis
Physicians--A Moral Pointed.
This chapter is not written because I possess a hammer that must be used.
My liver is sound, and I have a pretty good job. Neither palpation nor
"osculation" (as one of our bright Osteopathic students once said in
giving means used in physical diagnosis) reveals any "lesion" in my
domestic affairs.
However, it doesn't take the jaundiced eye of a pessimist to see the graft
that abounds to-day. The grafter is abroad in the land like a wolf seeking
whom he may devour, and the sheep-skin (sometimes a diploma) that once
disguised his wolfish character has become so tattered by much use that it
now deceives only the most foolish sheep. Once a sheep-skin of patriotism
disguised the politician, and people fancied that a public office was a
public trust. The revelations of the last few years have taught us that
too often a public office is but a public steal.
The commercial spirit dominates the age. Nothing is too sacred for its
defiling hands to touch. The church does not escape. Preachers accuse each
other of following their Lord for the loaves and fishes. Lawyers accuse
each other of taking fees from both sides. Leading physicians
unhesitatingly say that commercialism is the bane of the medical
profession. They say hundreds are rushing into medicine because they have
heard of the large earnings of a few fortunate city physicians, and think
they are going into something that will bring them plenty of "easy money."
Stock company medical colleges have been organized by men whose main
object was to get a share of the money these hosts of would-be doctors had
to spend. Even the new systems of therapeutics such as Osteopathy, that
have boomed themselves into a kind of popularity, have their schools that,
to believe what some of them say of each other, are dominated by the
rankest commercialism, being, in fact, nothing but Osteopathic diploma
mills.
Not alone has graft pervaded the schools whose business it is supposed to
be to make capable physicians. The graft that has been uncovered lately in
connection with the preparation and sale of medicines, drugs and nostrums
is almost incredible when we think of the danger to health and human life
involved. The same brand of ghouls who tamper with and juggle medicines
for gain, do not hesitate to adulterate and poison food. With their
inferior, filthy and "preserved" milk they slaughter the innocents to
make a paltry profit. The story Sinclair wrote of the nauseating horrors
of slaughter-houses was enough to drive us all to the ranks of vegetarians
forever.
Only recently I chanced to learn that even in the business of publishing
there is a little world of graft peculiar to itself. I was told by a
responsible book man that the encyclopedia containing a learned (?)
exposition of the science of Osteopathy is the product of grafters, who
took old material and worked in a little new matter, such as the
exposition of Osteopathy, to make their work appear up to date to the
casual observer. Then, to make the graft worse, for a consideration, it
was alleged, a popular publisher let his name be used, and thus thousands
were caught who bought the work relying on the reputation of the
publisher, who, it appears, had nothing whatever to do with the
encyclopedia.
Physicians, school teachers and preachers, all supposedly poor financiers,
know about the swarms of grafters who hound them with "get-rich-quick"
propositions into which they want them to put their scant surplus of
salary or income as they get it. A physician told me he would have been
$2,000 better off if a year or two before he had been a subscriber to a
certain medical journal that poses as a sort of "watch dog" of the
physician's treasury.
Pessimistic as this review may seem, there is yet room for optimism, and,
paradoxical as it may sound, men are not always as bad as their business.
I know of a lawyer who in his profession has the reputation of being the
worst shyster that ever argued a case. No scheme is too dishonest for his
use if it will win his case. Yet this man outside of his profession, in
his home, and in his society, is as fine a gentleman as you would wish to
meet--a model husband and father, a kind and obliging neighbor, a generous
supporter of all that is for the upbuilding and bettering of society.
Strong case, do you say? I believe our country is full of such cases. And
I believe the medical profession has thousands of just such men, men whose
instincts are for nobility of character and whose moral ideals are high,
but whose business standards are groveling.
They live a sort of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" life, and why? Are they not
to blame? And are they not to be classed as scoundrels? Yes--and no. These
men are diseased. Their contact with the world has inoculated them with
the world's contagion. What is this disease? The diagnosis has been
considered simple. So simple that the world has called it commercialism,
or money madness, and treated the disease according to this diagnosis
without studying it further. May it not be true that, for many cases at
least, the diagnosis is wrong? Do men choose the strenuous, money-grabbing
life because they really love it, or love the money? I believe thousands
of men in professional life to-day, who are known as dollar-chasers,
really long for a more simple life, but the disease they have has robbed
them of the power to choose "that better part." And that disease is not
money madness, but _failurephobia_.
The fear of failing, or of being called a failure, dominates the
professional world as no other power could. It claims thousands of poor
fellows who were brought up to the active, worth-while life of the farm or
of a trade, and chains them to a miserable, sham, death-in-life sort of
existence, that they come to loathe, but dare not leave because of their
disease, failurephobia.
Success is the world's standard. Succeed in your business or profession,
by honest means if you can, but _succeed_! At least, keep up the
appearance of succeeding, and you may keep your place in society. It may
be known that your business is poor, and that you go to your office and
sit in solitude day in and day out, and that you starve and skimp at home,
but so long as you keep up the _show_, you are a "professional man!" What
mighty courage it takes to acknowledge what everybody else knows, and
_quit_! A writer in a medical journal told of a young physician in Boston
who put an ad. in a daily paper asking for a job in which a strong man
could use the strength a manly man ought to be proud of, to earn an honest
living. If men only had the courage, I wonder how many such ads. would
appear in the columns of our papers!
An old schoolmate, who is a lawyer in a Western city, told me that of the
more than two hundred lawyers of that city, twenty had practically all the
law business, and of that twenty a half dozen got the big cases in which
there was most money. It is largely so in every city and town. And what
applies to the lawyer applies to the physician, though perhaps not to so
great an extent. And while the fortunate few get most of the practice,
and make most of the money, what are the unfortunate many doing? Holding
on, starving, skimping, keeping up appearances, and, while young, hoping
against hope for better days. But when hope long deferred has made the
soul sick, and hope itself dies, what then? Keep up appearances, you are a
professional man. You can't be a quitter. It would be humorous, were it
not so pathetic, to see the old doctor who has dragged along for years,
barely eking out a living, put on the silk hat of his more ambitious days
and wear it with dignity along with his shiny threadbare trousers and
short coat, making a desperate spurt to keep up with the dashing young
fellow just out of school.
_Failurephobia!_ Among professional men what a terrible disease it is! I
have known it to drive a young man, who might have been happy and useful
as a farmer or mechanic, into a suicide's grave. Such cases are not
uncommon. Who are the M.D.s whose pictures and glaring ads. appear in
those 15-cent papers published in Augusta, Me., and in many daily and even
religious papers? Are they men who took to graft and disgraced their
profession because they loved that kind of life, and the stigma it brings?
Not in many cases. Most of them perhaps come from the ranks of ambitious
fellows who lost out in the strife for legitimate practice, but who would
not acknowledge failure, so launched into quackery, and became _notorious_
if they could not become noted.
Strange as it may seem, the fact that a professional man is a notorious
grafter abroad does not necessarily deprive him of social standing at
home. I have in mind a man whose smug face appears in connection with a
page of loud and lurid literature in almost every 15-cent _Grafters
Herald_ from Maine to California; yet this man at home was pointed to with
pride as an eminently successful man. He wore his silk hat to church, and
the church of which he was a valued member was proud of the distinction he
gave it. A Western city has an industry to which it "points with pride,"
and the pictures of the huge plant appear conspicuously placed in
illustrated boom editions of the city's enterprising papers. This octopus
reaches out its slimy tentacles to every corner of the United States,
feeling for poor wretches smitten by disease, real or fancied. When once
it gets hold of them it spews its inky fluids around them until they
"cough up" their hard-earned dollars that go to perpetuate this "pride of
the West."
The most popular themes of the preacher, lecturer and magazine writer
to-day are Honesty, Anti-graft, Tainted Money, True Success, etc. You have
heard and read them all, and have been thrilled with the stirring words
"An honest man is the noblest work of God." The preacher and the people
think they are sincere, and go home congratulating themselves that they
are capable of entertaining such sentiment. When we observe their social
lives we are led to wonder how much of that noble sentiment is only cant
after all.
THE WORLD'S STANDARD.
The world will say that goodness is the only thing worth while,
But the man who's been successful is the man who gets the smile.
If the "good" man is a failure, a fellow who is down,
He's a fellow "up against it," and gets nothing but a frown.
The fellow who is frosted is the fellow who is down,
No matter how he came there, how honest he has been,
They find him just the same when being there's a sin.
A man is scarce insulted if you tell him he is bad,
To tell him he is tricky will never make him mad;
If you say that he's a schemer the world will say he's smart,
But say that he's a failure if you want to break his heart.
If you want to be "respected" and "pointed to with pride,"
"Air" yourselves in "autos" when you go to take a ride;
No matter how you get them, with the world that "cuts no ice,"
Your neighbors know you have them and know they're new and nice.
The preacher in the pulpit will tell you, with a sigh,
That rich men go with Dives when they come at last to die;
And men who've been like Lazarus, failures here on earth,
Will find their home in Heaven where the angels know their worth.
But the preacher goes with Dives when the dinner hour comes;
He prefers a groaning table to grabbing after crumbs.
Yes; he'll take Dives' "tainted money" just to lighten up his load.
Enough to let him travel in the little camel road.
That may sound like the wail of a pessimistic knocker, but every observing
man knows it's mostly truth. The successful man is the man who gets the
world's smile, and he gets the smile with little regard to the methods
employed to achieve his "success."
This deplorable social condition is largely responsible for the
multitudinous forms of graft that exist to-day. To "cut any ice" in
"society" you must be somebody or keep up the appearance of being
somebody. Even if the world knows you are going mainly on pretensions, it
will "wink the other eye" and give you the place your pretensions claim.
Most of the folk who make up "society" are slow to engage in stone
slinging, for they are wise enough to consider the material of which their
own domiciles are constructed.
To make an application of all this, let us not be too hard on the quack
and the shyster. He is largely a product of our social system. Society has
placed temptations before him to get money, and he must keep up the
appearances of success at any cost of honesty and independent manhood. The
poor professional man who is a victim of that fearful disease,
failurephobia, in his weakness has become a slave to public opinion. He is
made to "tread the mill" daily in the monotonous round to and from his
office where he is serving a life sentence of solitary confinement, while
his wife sews or makes lace or gives music lessons to support the family.
I say solitary confinement advisedly, for now a professional man is even
denied the solid comfort of the old-time village doctor or lawyer who
could sit with his cronies and fellow-loafers in the shade of the tavern
elm, or around the grocer's stove, and maintain his professional standing
(or rather sitting). In the large towns and cities that will not do
to-day. If the professional man is not busy, he must _seem_ busy. A
physician changed his office to get a south front, as he felt he _must_
have sunshine, and he dared not do like Dr. Jones, get it loafing on the
streets. Not that a doctor would not enjoy spending some of his long,
lonely hours talking with his friends in the glorious sunshine, but it
would not do. People would say: "Doctor Blank must not get much to do now.
I see him loafing on the street like old Doc Jones. I guess Doctor
Newcomer has made a 'has been' of him, too."
I know a young lawyer who sat in his office for two long years without a
single case. Yet every day he passed through the street with the brisk
walk of one in a hurry to get back to pressing business. He was so busy
(?) that he had to read the paper as he walked to save time to--wait!
Did you ever sit in the office with one of these prisoners and watch him
looking out of his window upon prosperous farmers as they untied fine
teams and drove away in comfortable carriages? Did you know how to
translate that look in his eye, and the sad abstraction of manner into
which he momentarily sank, in spite of his creed, which taught him to
always seem prosperous and contented? The translation was not hard. His
mind was following that farmer out of town and along the green lanes,
bordered by meadows and clover bloom, and on down the road through the
cool twilight of the quiet summer evening, to where the ribbon of dark
green forest, whose cool cadence had called to him so often, changed to
groves of whispering trees that bordered the winding stream that spoke of
the swimming holes and fishing pools of his boyhood. And on up the road
again, across the fertile prairie lands, until he turns in at the gate of
an orchard-embowered home. And do you think the picture is less attractive
to this exile because it has not the stately front and the glistening
paint of the smart house in town? Not at all. The smart house with
glistening paint is the one he must aspire to in town, but his ideal home
is that snug farmhouse to which his fancy has followed the prosperous
farmer.
That picture is not altogether a product of poetic fancy. We get glimpses
of such pictures in confidential talks with lawyers and doctors in almost
every town. These poor fellows may fret and sigh for change, "and spend
their lives for naught," but the hunger never leaves them. Not long ago a
professional man who has spent twenty-five years of his life imprisoned in
an office, most of the time just waiting, spoke to me of his longing to
"get out." His longing had become almost a madness. He forgot the creed,
to always appear prosperous, and spoke in bitterness of his life of sham.
He said he was like the general of the old rhyme who "marched up the hill
and--marched down again." He went up to his office and--went home again,
day in and day out, year in and year out, and for what? But
_failurephobia_ held him there, and he is there yet.
What schemes such unfortunates sometimes concoct to escape their fate! I
was told of a physician who was "working up a cough," to have an excuse to
go west "for his health." How often we hear or read of some bright doctor
or lawyer who had a "growing" practice and a "bright future" before him,
having to change his occupation on account of his health failing!
This is not an overdrawn picture. I believe old and observing professional
men will bear me out in it. Statistics of the conditions in the
professions are unobtainable, but I feel sure would only corroborate my
statement. In a recent medical journal was an article by a St. Louis
physician, which said the situation among medical men of that city was
"appalling." Of the 1,100 doctors there, dozens of them were living on
ten-cent lunches at the saloons, and with shiny clothes and unkempt
persons were holding on in despair, waiting for something better, or
sinking out of sight of the profession in hopeless defeat.
This is a discouraging outlook, but it is time some such pictures were
held up before the multitude of young people of both sexes who are
entering medical and other schools, aspiring to professional life. And it
is time for society to recognize some of the responsibility for graft that
rests on it, for setting standards that cause commercialism to dominate
the age.