THIS little book on the Horrors of Compulsory Vaccination, its medical
barbarism, and its moral and legal atrocity as a gross violation of
Basic Personal and Broad American Rights, is dedicated and addressed to
our esteemed President, Woodrow Wilson, for several decisive reasons:
FIRST: Because I believe him to be the most potent personality
in public office to-day and our greatest present representative
and exponent of Fundamental American Principles and Basic Human
Rights, and as being now recognized as a world-wide exponent of
these principles both at home and abroad.
SECOND: Because the President is Commander-in-Chief of the
Army and Navy and is thus invested with supreme commanding and
pardoning power, through which he can bring about an immediate
reform in the evil practice of compulsory vaccination by
pardoning, at his discretion, all men in the Army or Navy now
unjustly condemned by Court Martial for refusing vaccination,
and by abolishing all compulsion and making all vaccination
free and voluntary, as it now is in the English Army.
THIRD: Because the President is our highest civilian officer
and represents in his person and office one of our most
important American principles, the supremacy of the civil
over the military power. It therefore seemed to me most fit
and proper to appeal to our chief civilian officer on any
great question which concerns the most fundamental civil
rights of the citizen or involves any great abuse of military
power, as is the case with this evil practice of compulsory
vaccination. And I think it will be readily admitted that
_medical militarism_, such as the arbitrary medical compulsion
which forces and inflicts disease upon the human body, under
the fallacy of medical necessity and the pressure of military
law, is surely one of the most dangerous and oppressive forms
of extreme militarism that can be conceived and is not in
accordance with the spirit of American Institutions, and should
be suppressed. While, therefore, I, as a student of this
subject, may earnestly and persistently write and urge, and
demonstrate the truth on this subject, and prove by undeniable
fact, exhibit, and argument the dangerous nature of compulsory
vaccination and the shocking falsehoods on which it is based
as to its alleged efficacy, necessity and harmlessness, yet I
have not the least power or discretion to remove this evil;
whereas the power of the President in this matter is plenary,
instant and complete, so that in almost the twinkling of an eye
he can abolish this evil in the Army and Navy with one word
from his lips or one wave of his hand. And if this evil is once
abolished in the Army and Navy, its abolishment everywhere else
throughout the land is sure to follow, with great advantage
to human right and much improvement in public health, as has
resulted wherever this medical malpractice of inoculation
with inflicted disease has been reduced or abolished, with a
corresponding increase in sanitation and hygiene.
For these good reasons, I have therefore thought it most
proper and advisable to make this appeal to our highest civilian
official and our Chief Military Commander, who is so potently equipped
to give the immediate relief and establish the reform herein asked
for, viz., the full Medical Freedom to accept or refuse vaccination
as each individual sees fit, which is a basic and inherent American
right; and I therefore now submit the numerous and conclusive facts
and demonstrations in these pages for the special consideration of
the President and the general attention of the People and their
Representatives in our National and State Legislatures, and as a full
justification of the reform prayed for.
In conclusion, I might say that I first began this work as a simple
Letter of Petition to the President to abolish forced vaccination in
the Army and Navy, with a brief outline of reasons for this reform,
which letter was commenced before the President sailed for Europe to
attend the World Peace Conference. But the importance and scope of the
subject grew as I worked on it, and I concluded to expand the letter
into a full illustration and demonstration of the Horrors of Compulsory
Vaccination, its failures, falsehoods, futilities and fatalities, which
would be so thorough and convincing that it could not be disregarded.
This enlarged work has required nearly twelve months to complete and
make ready for the consideration of the President after his return from
the Peace Conference, and its publication has been much delayed by
several unavoidable conditions, including the recent great strike in
the printing trades.
I might further state in conclusion that I have spent a lifetime and a
fortune in the study and investigation of this subject and in efforts
for the repeal of all unwise laws for forcing vaccination upon the
people, which repeal is now being agitated and is progressing all over
the civilized world. And as I probably shall not be able to work many
more years in this great cause of Medical Freedom, and as this may be
my last contribution to the cause, I have concluded to make the case
against Compulsory Vaccination so full and complete in this Exposure
that there can be no question of its medical malpractice and its
dangerous, deadly and illegal nature.
For these reasons I have also thought it my duty to give to the public
the benefit of my studies of a lifetime and the accumulation of the
many shocking facts, proofs and exhibits which I have been collecting
for years, and which, as now massed in the Petition and its Illustrated
Supplement, can, I think, leave no doubt in the mind of any reasonable
man or woman--not professionally interested in vaccination--that all
Compulsory Vaccination should be immediately abolished, and that its
continuation, with these proofs against it, would be a most gross
medical blunder and malpractice and a grave violation of the basic
American principle of Inherent Individual Rights, in being a serious
menace to human health and life, a frequent cause of wide-spread
epidemics and demonstrably more fatal in many instances than natural
disease itself, and therefore a shocking violation of all true medical
ethics and a disgrace alike to modern medicine and modern legislation
which should no longer tolerate the practice.