Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/381

Rh of this committee show that it is thoroughly representative of the highest type of American citizenship. The officers of the Committee of One Hundred are:

President: Irving Fisher, Ph.D., professor of political economy at Yale University.

Secretary: Edward T. Devine, Ph.D., LL.D., professor of social economy, Columbia University, and secretary of the New York Charity Organization Society.

Vice-presidents: Rev. Lyman Abbott, D.D., LL.D., emeritus pastor of Plymouth Church, editor of The Outlook; Jane Addams, A.M., LL.D., founder and head worker of the Hull House Settlement, ex-president of the National Conference of Charities and Correction; Felix Adler, Ph.D., professor of political and social ethics, Columbia University, leader of the N. Y. Society for Ethical Culture; James B. Angell, A.M., LL.D., professor of modern languages and literature and president emeritus of the University of Michigan; Joseph H. Choate, LL.D., D.C.L. (Oxford), diplomat and United States senator; Charles W. Eliot, A.M., LL.D., president emeritus of Harvard University; Pit. Rev. John Ireland, LL.D., archbishop of St. Paul; Ben. B. Lindsey, judge, reformer and author, Denver, Colo.; John Mitchell, president of the labor union of America; William H. Welch, M.D., LL.D., professor of pathological anatomy, Johns Hopkins University.

Need I say anything in defense of the Committee of One Hundred after having given the names of its officers?

Direct and most unkind comments, not to use a stronger term, have been directed especially against one vice-president of the committee representing the medical profession. I refer to Dr. William H. Welch, M.D., LL.D., president of the American Medical Association. Those who know Dr. Welch and even those who only know of him, would justly think it absurd if I should see the need to say even a word in defense of this master of medical science. To us it is indeed difficult to understand that there would be any man or woman in this land capable of speaking ill of Dr. Welch. There is no name in the medical world which is more honored in this country and abroad, no medical teacher more admired, no one who has a larger following than this Johns Hopkins professor of pathology, and no physician more beloved and looked up to as representing all that is best and noblest in the profession than Dr. Welch. If there is any man in the American medical profession who is unselfishly devoting his high intelligence, his time and his means to the public welfare it is Dr. Welch. Gladly do we acknowledge him as our leader.

To accuse the president and members of the American Medical Association of selfish motives in advocating the establishment of a federal department of health is absurd. If there ever was an unselfish