EDITORIAL. 
623 
While no criticism will be forthcoming from the veterinary 
profession upon the marked discrepancies between the ante- 
and post-mortem statements of the injuries caused by the as¬ 
sassin’s bullet as it ploughed through the body of our beloved 
President, as well as the prognoses which the bulletins uttered 
up to a day or two prior to death, we cannot help thinking how 
the veterinarian would have been treated by the press had he 
similarly erred in a case of national moment. 
It now appears that the action of the American Veterinary 
Medical Association, in expelling a member without giving him 
the opportunity of defending himself against the charges, was 
illegal. What is the value of hasty, passionate action? Amer¬ 
ican laws would have been shorn of their dignity and the Con¬ 
stitution would have been outraged if the President’s assassin 
had been condemned to death without a trial by jury. If the 
object of the association’s vengeance did that which it consid¬ 
ered wrong, the situation was not improved by duplicating his 
act. 
The October issue of the Journal of Comparative Medicine 
and Veterinary Archives characterizes the action of the New 
York State V. M. Society, in the matter of the charges against 
its late Secretary, as “ contemptible .” We wonder if our con¬ 
temporary isn’t allowing its wishes to run away with its judg¬ 
ment. The association took deliberate action after thorough 
discussion, and we fancy its sense of justice will bear closer 
legal scrutiny than that of the A. V. M. A., which permitted 
some of its impulsive members to sway its action from its usual 
conservative course. The same spirit, and many of the same 
men, caused the U. S. V. M. A. to go on record at the Buffalo 
meeting in 1896 in a ridiculous set of resolutions upon the sub¬ 
ject of tuberculosis, while at Atlantic City the same subject was 
treated with gloves on. Nothing can be gained by precipita¬ 
tion. When a stand is taken let there be such a foundation of 
principle and proof that nothing can shake it. 
