338 
Association  s  Latent  Power. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
May,  1920. 
almost  irresistible  power  for  bringing  the  other  factors  into  absolute 
subjugation,  if  it  should  ever  will  to  so  exercise  its  strength,  which 
I  am  not  contending.  Yet,  why  should  this  be  so?  Their  organiza- 
tion, it  is  true,  has  the  advantage  of  many  years  more  building  than 
has  our  own,  but  it  is  nothing  that  could  not  be  easily  duplicated 
were  the  organization  experience  of  the  membership  applied  inten- 
sively to  the  task.  And  outside  of  this,  the  natural  advantages  are 
with  this  association.  It  cannot  be  said  that  the  financial  resources 
of  the  A.  M.  A.  are  anywhere  near  as  great  as  those  of  this  industry. 
And  it  must  be  admitted  that  their  organization  lacks  the  coherency 
of  one  with  our  smaller  and  more  compact  membership.  The  interest 
of  the  average  physician  in  the  A.  M.  A.  is  only  general  in  character. 
The  A.  M.  A.  can  only  deal  with  problems  that  affect  him  indirectly 
in  a  scarcely  palpable  way  and  besides  he  is  not  likely  to  be  in  sym- 
pathy with  all  its  decisions.  It  would  be  a  physical  impossibility 
for  an  organization  with  better  than  50,000  members  to  refl^pt^  ^^a^ 
sentiment  of  the  individual  as  accurately  as  does  our  own  asso(,,f-  'on 
of  from  fifty  to  sixty  members,  and  to  reflect  it,  moreover,  99.,times 
out  of  a  hundred.  The  so-called  advantages  of  its  members  are  in 
my  judgment  negatived  by  the  disadvantages.  What  elements  of 
strength  its  numbers  do  possess  are  offset,  it  seems  to  me,  by  the 
fact  that  you  cannot  compare  the  influence  of  a  single  individual 
physician  with  that  of  a  manufacturing  establishment  such  as  goes 
to  make  up  our  membership. 
There  is  nothing  that  the  A.  M.  A.,  or  any  other  Association, 
has  done  or  can  do  that  we  cannot  equal,  or — if  their  activity  is 
adverse  to  our  legitimate  interest — offset,  if  the  industry  is  only  of  a 
mind  to  devote  a  fair  proportion  of  its  resources  of  brains  and  money 
and  experience  to  the  enterprise.  Let  me  put  you  at  your  ease. 
This  is  not  a  preface  to  the  submission  of  some  proposal  involving 
vast  expenditures.  I  am  not  coming  to  you  with  a  proposition  on 
which  I  expect  you  to  act  at  this  meeting.  It  is  simply  my  inten- 
tion to  put  to  you  more  concretely  than  I  have  done  before  some  of 
the  constitutional  remedies  that  appeal  to  me  as  cures. 
If,  acting  on  your  own  initiative,  you  should  ever  see  fit  to  adopt 
them,  they  would  call,  it  is  true,  for  much  larger  sums  than  you  have 
been  in  the  habit  of  expending  on  Association  activities.  Their , 
proportion  to  the  sales  of  the  industry,  however,  would  be  trifling 
compared  to  the  proportion  that  an  advertising  appropriation  of 
reasonable  size  bears  to  the  advertiser's  annual  gross  sales,  and  the 
