The Governor's Speech

Doctors who invited Oklahoma's Governor Johnston Murray (son of ex-Governor "Alfalfa Bill" Murray) to address the Tulsa County Medical Society last week expected the usual soothing syrup about the responsibilities of their profession. They found themselves under bitter attack.

"I lay down this flat proposition," said the governor. "During the last 35 years or thereabouts, the medical profession has lost an immeasurable amount of public esteem, reverence and respect that it formerly enjoyed." The main trouble, as he saw it: the "commercialization of the profession." "Maybe," said the governor, the oldtime doctor "didn't die with an amassed fortune of land and gold and loot, but he left behind him a life that had been a blessing to mankind, an honor to his profession."

An outspoken foe of socialism and of the Truman-Ewing plan for a compulsory national health service, Governor Murray nevertheless lambasted the profession for the 'millions of dollars spent in the last ten years to fight such schemes. "You have been able to scare the very britches off the politicians," he said, "and to date you have been able to fend off the advances of the socialistic trend, but you and I both know you haven't stopped it by any means . . . During all of this fight you have failed completely to rally a militant public opinion to your support . . . What about your neighbors across the alley or your patients who live on the other side of the tracks? Will they come to your rescue? You know they haven't, and unless some changes are made, they probably won't. On the contrary, they may, all too soon, be found casting off their state of lethargy and aggressively joining in the battle against you. When and if this happens, you can kiss your political influence goodbye."

The governor also had a few harsh words about doctors' high fees: "I wonder how many Edisons, Einsteins, Lincolns and Pasteurs lie buried in unmarked graves because they were too poor to call a doctor. Doctors, this is your burden and your responsibility . . . The pauper who needs you today was yesterday one of the taxpayers who helped build and maintain our great [University of Oklahoma] School of Medicine, where the doctors of today and tomorrow receive their education. You will be a long time paying this debt."

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