Article February 26, 1927 Issue

For your information and for the information of your...

Judge Clifford P. Smith, Committee on Publication for The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Boston, Massachusetts,—Lowell

Courier-Citizen

For your information and for the information of your readers, kindly allow me to say that the Commissioner of Health of Milwaukee has no legal power or right to compel people to be vaccinated, whether compulsion be attempted directly or indirectly. I have before me an opinion to this effect from a well-known lawyer in Milwaukee. Furthermore, it is a logical presumption that the Health Commissioner would have cited his authority and would have acted directly if he had been authorized to order vaccination.

This statement is submitted with reference to the criticism in your recent issue of an editorial in The Christian Science Monitor which criticized an attempt by the Commissioner of Health of Milwaukee to compel vaccination by means of "pressure" or threats. For instance, this commissioner issued a letter addressed to all employers in Milwaukee, in which he said: "This department expects you to have all of your employees vaccinated immediately, regardless of whether your employees believe in vaccination or not." To put pressure upon the employers, he intimated quite plainly that they might expect their places of business to be closed by quarantine if they did not do as he said; which intimation also exceeded his authority to order a quarantine. Christian Scientists are scrupulous about obeying laws, and consistently maintain that health officers have and equal obligation to observe the laws from which they derive their authority.

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