TO comprehend the constitutional rights of Christian Scientists, who do not elect to employ medical doctors, it is necessary to bear in mind certain fundamental principles of American government. While these ought to be familiar to all American citizens, an accurate statement thereof, from recognized authorities, will help to clarify the subject under discussion. As certain State constitutions say, "A frequent recurrence to the fundamental principles of civil government is absolutely necessary to preserve the blessings of liberty."
The first and most important consideration is that the American system of government is founded upon the individual and his independence. The constructive statesmen who brought this nation forth, conceived government or the State to exist "merely as a legal entity, created and organized solely for the protection of the individual." (Thorpe, Constitutional History of the United States. Vol. I, p. 43.) "In the revision and new definition of the State by Adams, Jefferson, and their associates, the individual was recognized as the center of the political system.... The American Revolution differed from all preceding revolutions in the history of the world in its enthronement of the individual and its subordination of the State to him. For a proper understanding of the character of the American constitutions of government, this idea cannot be too well mastered." (Idem, p. 42.) In the United States, "organized government has for its object the protection of the individual against undue interference on the part of others with his enjoyment of life and the beneficial employment of his faculties.... The purposes of government will not be carried out in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Independence, unless all men are guaranteed equality before the law, that is, the equal right to protection under the law in the enjoyment of individual liberty, so far as it can be secured without depriving others of substantially the same degree of freedom and opportunity." (McClain, Constitutional Law, pp. 289, 290.)
The underlying basis is that men are endowed with rights, "not by grace of emperors or kings, or by force of legislative or constitutional enactments, but by their Creator; and to secure them, not to grant them, governments are instituted among men." (Powell v. Pennsylvania, 127 U. S. 678.)
Christian Science is "a system of religious teaching, based on the Scriptures, which originated with the Rev. Mary Baker Eddy about 1866. Its most notable application is in the professed cure of disease by mental and spiritual means." (Century Dictionary.) Christian Scientists rely on the practice of their religion to prevent and cure disease, and for very good reasons. The principal reasons which obtain with the great majority are these: 1. They have had need of relief from sickness or bad habits and have failed to obtain it by other means. 2. They have found Christian Science to be a superior curative agent, even curing the diseases which other systems deem incurable. 3. They believe it to be the curative agent ordained of God: that Christ Jesus used the same method, and commanded all his followers to do likewise. 4. They believe that the practice of Christian Science will ultimately overcome and abolish evil, sickness, and suffering, and thus deliver the human race from the law of sin and death. For these reasons and others— such, for instance, as the fear of ill effects from drugs— a large and ever-increasing number of intelligent and law-abiding citizens rely on Christian Science to prevent or cure disease, and others are constantly turning to it after materia medica has failed to heal or relieve them.
We submit to all fair-minded persons and especially to those who cherish American traditions and respect constitutional limitations, that the facts just stated ought to preclude the enactment or existence of any law calculated to forbid or hinder citizens from relying on Christian Science or employing Christian Science practitioners in case of sickness.
Aside from the constitutional questions which are involved, we assert that the drugging system has not become so certain in its results as to be entitled to prohibit people from going outside and employing other means and methods to obtain relief. When any system of healing reaches the stage of development, and its practitioners exhibit the uniform success which will warrant them in asking a monopoly, they will not need or want an act of the legislature for that purpose. Chief Justice Clark of the Supreme Court of North Carolina sums up this aspect of the matter as follows "An eminent medical authority in this State has said that out of twenty-four serious cases of disease, three could not be cured by the best remedies, three others might be benefited, and the rest would get well anyway. Stronger statements could be cited from the most eminent medical authorities the world has known. Medicine is an experimental, not an exact, science. All the law can do is to regulate and safeguard the use of powerful and dangerous remedies, like the knife and drugs, but it cannot forbid dispensing with them. When the Master, who was himself called the Good Physician, was told that other than his followers were casting out devils and curing diseases, he said. 'Forbid them not.'" (State v. Biggs, 133 N. C. 729, 46 S. E. 401, 64 L. R. A. 139.)
Christian Scientists are not opposing the efforts of medical doctors to raise the standards of their own profession, nor do they oppose any law legitimately calculated to regulate the practice of medicine. Moreover, they have no objection to any law appropriately designed to protect the public from the ignorance or imposition of persons whose qualifications do not correspond to their professions. Christian Scientists do not profess to be medical doctors. They study, rely on, and practise a different, an opposite system, a system which the public well knows to be entirely different. It should also be understood that Christian Scientists are not making an attack on medical doctors. We have the greatest respect for the motives and attainments of the better class of physicians. We are also aware that not nearly all of the medical profession—probably not a majority at present—desire legislation against Christian Science. The more cultivated, broad-minded, and successful physicians labor to alleviate pain and sickness, leaving Christian Science to rise or fall by its own merits or demerits. Many of them show a friendly interest in our work and an increasing percentage of them advise their patients to try Christian Science as a last resort.
The fact remains, however, that the efforts to obtain legislation against Christian Science have in every instance emanated directly or indirectly from the medical profession and usually from medical societies. Many such efforts have been made, often with great preparation and years of political activity. This has been a prominent feature of nearly all the more recent efforts. The fact that the demand for legislation against Christian Science comes from the medical doctors and not from the people generally has been noticed by all whose official duty has brought them in contact with the subject. Thus, Governor Mickey of Nebraska vetoed a bill for a law aimed at Christian Science practice in 1905. In his veto message he referred to the fact just stated as follows: "Without in any degree reflecting upon the motives of the legislature, it is difficult, too, to avoid the conclusion that the bill was conceived in a spirit of professional intolerance. As orginally introduced, the measure bore upon osteopaths with the same rigor that it does upon Christian Scientists, and when it is recalled that homoeopaths, eclectics, and other now well-recognized schools of healing, as well as osteopaths, have had to fight their way to existence over legal barriers raised by their professional brethren who happened to be within the pale of the law, the suspicion may be pardonable that there is more at issue than a consuming zeal for the public health." Governor Peabody of Colorado vetoed a bill for such an act in 1903. He referred to the same fact in his veto message as follows: "There is no demand on the part of the public for this class of legislation, and while I have been urged by many eminent physicians to approve this bill, others, equally eminent and quite as numerous, have urged me to withhold my approval."
Governor Thomas of Colorado vetoed a bill for such an act in 1899. Referring to the same subject in his veto message, he said, "A decided majority of the medical profession, including a large number of personal and political friends, have urgently requested the approval of the measure. I am persuaded that they earnestly believe it to lie essential to the public welfare and designed to subserve the objects set forth in its title. It is not without reluctance, therefore, that the conclusions I have reached concerning its merits make it impossible to comply with their desires. With every consideration for their judgment and their sincerity, I regard the bill as unjust, oppressive, and obnoxious to the general welfare.... The title of the bill as it relates to the public is a misnomer. This is a common subterfuge; all measures designed to promote a specific interest or protect an existing evil are ostensibly labeled 'for the benefit of the people.' The fact that the people do not seek the protection, ask for the benefit, nor suspect the existence of the alleged danger, is wholly immaterial.... It is a legitimate criticism of this bill that it is the offspring of an union between the allopathic, homoeopathic, and eclectic schools of medicine, into whose custody the health of the public is to be unconditionally delivered. Each in its own circle is given impunity as against the other two, but the condition is that the fusion or triple alliance must stand as a unit against all others. No one will believe that this union would have been made had it not been essential to the passage of this bill. If the allopath is to be believed, the homoeopath is a charlatan and the eclectic a fraud. If the homoeopath is to be credited, he has saved society from the narrow dogmatism of allopathic ignorance, and if the eclectic is heard, he tells us that he has garnered to himself the wisdom of all the schools and nothing but the husks remain. Neither deems it consistent with professional ethics to confer or consult with the others, and each believes his own to be the one branch of medical science worthy of the name. Homoeopathy fought its way to recognition against the bitter and implacable antagonism of the regular school, established itself in the face of abuse, ridicule, persecution, and invective. Its disciples suffered all the pains that hatred, contumely, and authority could inflict upon it. They now unite with their hereditary and still unreconciled adversaries to deny to others the claims they have so successfully vindicated for themselves, and to assist them in the effort to extinguish all forms of healing save their own. Society, however, does not forget, and it may, therefore, be pardoned if it sees in this fusion of the schools something beyond the philanthropic desire to protect the public health."
It will be observed from the facts and reasons stated in the second division of this article that persons who may choose to employ Christian Science to preserve or recover their health cannot be forbidden by law to do so without depriving them of their religious liberty. Hence Governor Mickey of Nebraska justly said in his veto message, "The constitution of the State of Nebraska declares that 'all persons have a natural and indefeasible right to worship almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences,' and further adds, 'nor shall any interference with the rights of conscience be permitted.' In the Christian Science religion the ideas of worship and of divine healing are so intermingled that it is impossible to draw the line of demarcation, and hence interference with the one or the other is an interference with 'the rights of conscience' and thus becomes an infringement of the constitutional guaranty of religious freedom."
It is also true that the rights of such persons do not depend solely upon the constitutional guaranty of religious freedom. For— to again quote Chief Justice Clark— "This is a free country, and any man has a right to be treated by any system he chooses." Whoever thinks that spiritual knowledge is more effectual and reliable in case of sickness than material knowledge, has the right to act accordingly. For, as Mr. Justice Brewer of the United States Supreme Court says, liberty is "simply the right to do that which one deems best, subject to the limitation that it does not interfere with the equal rights of other members of the community." (American Citizenship, p. 87.)
The fact that materia medica is not an exact science, but simply a process of experimentation; and the fact that thousands upon thousands of persons—constituting a considerable and a respectable part of the community—hold to the opinion, based on their own knowledge, observation, and experience, and the known experience of others, that Christian Science furnishes the most effective and reliable curative method known to humanity— these facts alone, not to mention the other considerations weighing with them, should dissuade the members of legislatures from attempting, by law, to deprive other citizens of their freedom of choice. Any such law, whether attempting the result directly or by indirection, must necessarily be contrary to the spirit of American institutions and deprive citizens not only of their religious liberty but of their individual liberty as citizens of a free country.
To again quote from Governor Peabody's veto message: "Guided by the late experience of similar legislation in other States, the conclusion is irresistible, that all such legislation has a tendency to restrict the citizen in the employment of whomsoever he pleases in the treatment of his diseases, and it also has a tendency to build up, under the protection of the State, a trust or combination of certain schools of medicine, to the exclusion of all others equally meritorious."
To quote again from the message by which Governor Thomas of Colorado vetoed a bill for an act designed to suppress the practice of Christian Science by requiring all who practise healing to pass an examination in materia medica and kindred subjects: "The fundamental vice of the bill is that it denies absolutely to the individual the right to select his own physician. This is a right of conscience, and as sacred as that which enables the citizen to worship God as he may desire. It is indeed the same right manifesting itself in a parallel direction. It is a part of the law of this land, and no civil power is strong enough to deprive the citizen of its exercise. He may indeed select a healer of doubtful reputation or conceded incompetence, but that is his affair just as much as is his choice of a minister or attorney. His action may prove injurious, possibly fatal, to himself or to some members of his family. It is better so than to delegate to any tribunal the power to say 'thou shalt not employ this man' or 'thou shalt employ this one.' That this bill produces such a result indirectly makes it the more objectionable. It is not the outspoken and aggressive assault upon individual liberty that men should fear, but the indirect or resultant blow that is masked and falls unexpectedly. The bill, like all kindred forms of paternalism, assumes that the citizen cannot take care of himself. The State must lead him as a little child, lest he fall into trouble unawares. He must be guarded and chided, limited here and licensed there, for his own protection. Such a system, born of the union of Church and State, crumbles into ashes in the crucible of experience. It cannot flourish, though disguised in the garments of an alleged public necessity. The privilege of choosing one's own physician is a positive essential to the public health. Yet this bill assumes to thrust the coarse machinery of the criminal law into one of the most sacred relations of human life, to drag the chosen physician, if unlicensed, from the sick-couch to the prison cell, and to substitute for him some one who, however exalted and honorable, may not command the confidence or secure the sympathy of his patient. These comments are not extreme, for it must be remembered that those who believe in and patronize the various arts of healing that are ostracized by this bill form a very large part of every community, nor are they confined to the ignorant and superstitious portions of society. They number in their ranks thousands of the most refined, intelligent, and conscientious people. They recognize in many modern forms of relief to the suffering a religious or spiritual element that appeals to their best and tenderest sympathies. The benefits they claim and the cures they narrate are not imaginary. Shall the government enact by statute that these people shall not longer enjoy their benefits or put them into daily practice? Shall it officially declare these people to be criminally wrong and the three schools legally right? By what authority does it so declare? A distinguished physician of Massachusetts has recently declared with great force that 'the commonwealth has no right to a medical opinion and should not dare to take sides in a medical controversy.' It would be as consistent to take sides in a theological or philosophical discussion. The one would be condemned by all men; the other is equally foreign to the province of government. It may regulate, but cannot prohibit the calling of the citizens; it may prevent the commission of wrongs, but cannot deprive the individual of the right to choose his own advisers."
Christian Scientists ask no special privileges nor proscriptive legislation. They do not wish to force any one to adopt their opinions or methods. They only claim the right to do Christian work and to be free from constraint in respect to their choice of religion and therapeutics. They assert that the spirit which gave our system of government birth and form forbids any group of citizens, though temporarily clothed with the power of making laws, to define or regulate the relations between God and men, set limits to His salvation, or prescribe what method all citizens shall employ in case of sickness. They assert that every American citizen has the right to choose the method or system which he will employ to preserve his health, and the right to have the aid, if he so desires, of a practitioner of that system. Such rights pertain directly to the preservation of life, they belong most vitally to the pursuit of happiness, and, when the citizen chooses to rely on the practice of a religion to prevent or cure disease, they are inseparable from both civil and religious liberty. When the American people first assumed the power of self-government, they declared such rights to be God-given and unalienable.
