CONTAGIOUS DISEASES AMONG DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 
35 
last proposition deserves not only condemnation, but bitter oppo¬ 
sition from every true member of our profession. Who of us is 
willing to play advisory fiddle to these three moguls ? I, for one, 
certainly am not. (Better wait until I am asked ? says some one ; 
but I don’t intend to.) In Mr. Kiefer’s plan the veterinarian 
stands on an equal footing with the other members of the Commis¬ 
sion. He is a man—a servant of the people—not a tool, depend¬ 
ing for his position upon political favoritism alone. 
What man of us is willing to take any public position upon 
such terms ? Certainly no one with a particle of self-respect or 
professional pride! What reward does it offer for work of the 
most arduous and responsible kind ? Here we are at the close of 
an administration. What kind of a man does the honorable 
member from Ohio think can be obtained, willing to give up a 
lucrative practice, to take a public position for the brief period of 
one year, or, what is still more damnable, to take it subject to the 
will and sweet pleasure of three government officials and political 
wire-pullers ? Such a proposition as this of Mr. Lefevre is 
nothing else than demoralizing and insulting to our profession. 
Better no Commission at all than one by which the veterinarian 
is proposed to occupy so subordinate a position. 
Our profession should represent a scientific body of men, 
Science is not bought and sold. She does not stoop, nor do her 
advancing sons, at the feet of men almost ignorant of the alpha 
and omega of her mission. Unless our representative can occupy 
an equally honorable position with any other member of the 
Commission, the Government should go begging for such an in 
cumbent. 
When will the day come that our Government will appreciate 
science and do something for her advancement ? If Congress 
should pass either of these bills, it is to be hoped that this posi¬ 
tion will be made equal to any other on the Board, and second 
that it will be thrown open to the profession for public competi¬ 
tion, theoretical and practical; by this we mean autopsies of dis¬ 
eased animals, with oral demonstrations of the results. Unless 
this practical side is strictly observed, some book-worm might get 
the position, whose only fitness would be that of a parrot —to 
