THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
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A STORY OF LONG AGO 
Once upon a lime, when tlie present large Rureaucraey 
was being built up in Wasbington, there existed what 
was then considered as a large and imiaortant Govern¬ 
ment organization known as The Department of Medical 
Science. The business of this Department was to keep 
up the health of the people of these United Stales and to 
keep down the germs and diseases which alllicted them. 
Rut this was a big j(dj, too big for the Dejaartment some 
of its otTicials admitted, for it should be remembered that 
even the chiefs of this Department were not what we 
would now call big men; in fact while most of the chiefs 
were graduate Doelors they were unable to make a liv¬ 
ing in com])etitive practice and were glad enough to get 
an easy steady job in Government service at good sal¬ 
aries. 
Rut Government serviee was very slow in those days, 
there was little excitement, few^ visitors, very little to do, 
so it was hard to ])ass the relatively short hours these 
em])loyees w^orked. Of eourse they could have ke])t 
themselves busy keeping the American ])eople free from 
disease, but had their chiefs not admitted this was too 
big a job for them, and as many more deseiwing demo¬ 
crats w^ere being brought into the service, jobs had to be 
])rovided for them. So the chiefs of, the Department b(;- 
gan to cogitate and finally evolved a scheme wdiich w^ould 
stop all immigration, for were not many diseases brought 
into the country by emigrants and other visitors to our 
shores—but first of all data must be eollecled to justify 
sueh a drastic measure. 
So in 1912 these ehiefs introduced into Congress a 
bill erealing a Federal Medical Roard consisting of live 
bureau chiefs in the Department of Medical Science, and 
which gave this Roard the ])ower to make regulations 
w hich, it considered necessary to ])rotecl the. people from 
disease. Of course nothing was said to Congress about 
wdiat the Board’s ultimate object w^as once they had the 
arbitrary powder to make regulation's, and as the Roard 
w as in a position to show to. Congress the many advaiH 
tages of keeping diseases down, and there was very 
little opposition, the measure was passed by Congress. 
These bureau chiefs now had lots of work for their 
regular and new" men in collecting data of the many 
diseases whieh emigrants had brought in and wdiich 
others might bring in. Jobs were now provided for 
thousands of State Inspectors to inspect every emigrant 
after arrival at destination, and w"hen it is considered 
that the salaries of these chiefs w"ere based largely ac¬ 
cording to the number of employees they controlled and 
the influence they wielded it can be said that things were 
going w ell w"ith them. The new" law required them to 
call hearings wdienever they contemplated placing a quar¬ 
antine on any class of emigrants, so frequent hearings 
were called whieh brought some public prominence to 
these chiefs and provided some excitement and interest. 
Altogether some 36 quarantines w"ere placed in seven 
years, but none of them w"ere of much importance. 
Then in the year 1919 the crash came, the Board of 
Medical Science issued a decree stopping all immigra¬ 
tion from all countries except Germany, Austria, Turkey 
and Bulgaria. Why Belgium, France, Great Britain, 
Holland and other “allied” nations were hit so hard 
w"hile “enemy” countries were so distinctly favored was 
ascribed to the influence of a German Doctor on the 
Board—but perhaps the amiable Doctor had taken out 
U. S. citizenship papers. Anyway there was a great 
scream from the peo])le at what llu'-y termed lln^ arbi¬ 
trary, autocratic, un-American action of the Board, pro¬ 
tests were filed by hundreds, Congressmen and Senators 
busied themselves, hut all to no purpose—the five 
bureau chiefs stood firm. 
Finally the Secretary of the D(q)artment of Medical 
Science was appealed to by re])resentatives of an over¬ 
whelming majority of the people, who explained that 
they never had a chance to ])resent their case at the 
hearings, tliat the scoi)e of the hearings was hidden from 
them, that such hearings were stuffed w ith the Board’s 
friends and that anyw ay these hearings reprc'sentt'd little 
else but star chamber proceedings. The Secretary lis¬ 
tened politely and promised to consider the briefs sid)- 
mitted and render his decision later. About two weeks 
later the Secretary rendered his decision, but as he used 
the same w"ords and w"orn-out arguments of the Board of 
five, the people said “it is the voice of Jacob but the hand 
of Esau.” 
The country got along somehow without much immi¬ 
gration until the year 1921—when it was found that the 
stopping of immigration did not stop the spread of dis- 
seases, so the five w ise men of Washington began to cogi¬ 
tate again. They deeided that steamers arriving from 
foreign ports brought in diseases even w hen they brought 
no passengers, and as the American peo])le must he pro¬ 
tected from disease at all costs and (luite regardless of 
commerce or friendly relations with foreign nations 
(which the Board of five knew" little about anyway) all 
foreign commerce w as stopped. Of course there was a 
strong volume of dissent from business men, solemn 
warnings were given of future perils—but as the Board 
considered the suppression of foreign commerce neces¬ 
sary to keej) the peo})le free from disease, the Board stood 
firm. 
Timei ])assed on and it was found that the stoppage of 
immigration and of foreign commerce did not decrease 
the disease w"hich alllicted the peoj)le. It w"as also found 
that disease was being carried on trains, eanal boats and 
various forms of interstate transj)ortation, so the same 
old arguments w"ere trotted out that w ere used in justify¬ 
ing the stoppage of immigration and foreign commerce 
and interstate trade w"as stopped throughout the United 
States. Of course the i)eople made a big how l, but w as 
not the Board protecting them from disease? so the 
Board stood firm. 
In the year 1925, as disease continued as before among 
the people, and the peo])le died as before, these five w"ise 
men of Washington deeided that their former regulations 
were not drastic enough to prevent the s])reading of 
disease, so they is'sued further regiilatons stoi)ping all 
communication betw een cities, towns and villages. Trol ¬ 
ley cars, w"agons, jitneys, automobiles and all modes of 
transportation were sto])ped, for did they not carry 
])eople who were apt to spread disease? Of course' the 
people figured they would sooner have the disease than 
