330  Present  Status  of  Health  Insurance.     { ^M^ay^^r/jS; 
3.  The  modern  bolshevists  who  are  out  for  anything  that 
promises  to  foment  class  hatred,  promote  chaos,  curb  production, 
destroy  prosperity  and  kill  private  initiative. 
4.  The  men  in  every  State  who  have  the  nose  of  a  hunting  dog 
for  political  jobs,  and  who  see  the  vision  of  a  great  organization 
feeding  at  the  public  treasury. 
Thus  we  find  compulsory  health  insurance  with  a  peculiar  assort- 
ment of  friends.  It  is  at  once  to  be  observed  that,  not  the  lion 
and  the  lamb,  but  the  zealot  and  the  crook  lie  down  together.  Not 
politics  only,  but  socialistic  "reforms"  as  well,  make  strange  bed- 
tnates. 
In  the  early  days  of  the  movement  it  was  thought  that  the 
medical  profession  was  in  favor  of  it.  For  a  time  the  medical 
profession,  indeed,  was  in  favor  of  it.  But  now  we  find  physicians 
arrayed  strongly  among  the  opposition,  and  we  observe  them  to  be 
well  organized  in  one  or  two  States  where  the  issue  has  reached  the 
stage  of  practical  danger.  In  this  State,  for  instance,  you  will  see 
medical  organizations  resisting  the  movement  to  the  last  ditch. 
LABOR  OPPOSED  TO  COMPULSORY  HEALTH  INSURANCE- 
The  various  groups  in  favor  of  compulsory  health  insurance 
all  unite  in  declaring  that  it  is  primarily  for  the  benefit  of  labor. 
But  the  somewhat  amusing  and  certainly  very  effective  answer 
is  that  labor  itself  doesn't  want  it.  It  is  true  that  a  few  scattered 
units  of  labor,  here  and  there,  have  at  times  been  in  favor  of  com- 
pulsory health  insurance,  but  the  great  body  of  the  rank  and  file, 
as  well  as  the  national  officers  of  authority,  are  vigorously  in  opposi- 
tion. As  recently  as  January  30,  of  this  year,  at  a  meeting  here  in 
New  York  of  the  National  Civic  Federation,  Samuel  Gompers  made 
the  following  statement: 
It  has  come  to  me  that  recently  some  person  has  declared  that  Gompers 
has  been  won  over  to  compulsory  health  insurance.  I  have  already  made  my 
answer,  which  is  that  I  am  unalterably  opposed  to  it. 
We  may  be  perfectly  sure  that  Mr.  Gompers  and  his  associates 
would  definitely  align  themselves  for  compulsory  health  insurance 
if  it  were  something  beneficial  to  the  laboring  man.  These  men  are 
in  favor  of  several  movements  in  behalf  of  the  laborer  which  capital 
is  resisting.  Surely  here  is  something  that  labor  would  want  if 
labor  found  it  desirable.  The  opposition  of  Mr.  Gompers  and  other 
leaders  is  perhaps  the  most  staggering  thing  which  the  proponents 
