Civil WarDemocracySocialismSocialist PartySoviet

126 THE WORKERS COUNCIL OCTOBER 15, 1921 OCTOBER 15, 1921 THE WORKERS COUNCIL 127 Lusk and Hillquit Accommodated Medical Care in Soviet Russia When Senator Clayton (Silverware) Lusk proposed Hillquit, entertains, and which, eo ipso, the Socialist his law for the licensing of schools, classes and Party stands for.
courses by the State Board of Education, he openly Strange enough, when Samuel Untermeyer volunadmitted that it was aimed primarily at the Rand teered to defend the school in the courts he did not School.
inquire about the views of its administrators or He had previously tried to destroy the school with teachers. It was the illegal raid upon the school that out the aid of new legislation, but was outgeneraled interested him, in a legal skirmish by Samuel Untermeyer who took Mr. Hillquit refused to defend the school if it reup the cudgels for the school, altho violently opposed tained Glassberg as instructor in those subjects which to everything that the school stood for.
he was qualified to teach. He did not care to defend The New York State Extraordinary Commission people with whose views his did not agree.
for the Suppression of Revolutionary Movements (it The School made it known to the public that it will not recognize the law and will fight it in the courts on was officially known under another name but that is what it aimed to be) was presided over by Senator the ground of the right to teach the social sciences Lusk, and Archibald Stevenson was its brains (God from the Socialist point of view.
save the mark. Hillquit declared that the school could only teach Under the guidance of Detective Stevenson, the these subjects from the Socialist Party point of view Lusk Committee raided the school offices in the hope and the school agreed to that.
of implicating the school in some of the plots to overThis action led to the resignation of a majority of throw the government which were periodically sched the Board of Directors as officers and members of the uled to come off.
society governing the school, including the president and treasurer.
The attacks upon the school by the Lusk Committee, the capitalist press and all reactionary elements was They were followed by other members of the Socaused by the notoriety it had gained by employing ciety, including Scott Nearing, who, with the exception teachers who were removed from their positions on of David Berenberg, is the only instructor continuaccount of radical beliefs or activities.
ing as a member of the Society.
When Scott Nearing was dismissed from Pennsyl When the Socialist Party met all the objections vania University for teaching the truth about the raised against the party at the Albany Trial at the predatory interests, the Rand School invited him to 1920 New York Convention by editing its constitution lecture to its students. When he was later removed and adopting a reformist platform and declaration of for the same reason as Dean of Toledo University the principles, Attorney General Newton declared the school engaged him as a member of its staff of per party purged of its un American features and quite manent instructors. It stood by him when he was respectable.
prosecuted for writing a pamphlet exposing the ecoMorris Hillquit, as legal advisor of the Rand nomic causes of war and militarism and paid a fine of School, got the school to do the same thing that the 3, 000 for publishing the pamphlet.
party did last year.
Similarly, when Harry Dana was discharged from The Rand School has also purged itself, and AtColumbia University because of his anti war activities, torney General Newton announced that it would not the Rand School acclaimed him and he was provided be molested while the constitutionality of the law is with audiences ten times greater than were offered tested in the courts. To become respectable is to him by the university.
insure your safety under capitalist dictatorship.
Benjamin Glassberg came to the school three years This policy has, however, wrecked the Socialist ago after losing the right to teach in the public schools Party. The Rand School, in following Hillquit adof the city vice, has chosen the way of the Socialist Party, which The indiscretion which cost him his job consisted in is the way of oblivion and utter disrepute with the telling his students in history that the political party advanced workers of this country.
which was ruling Russia did not consist of bloodthirsty maniacs, but of honored representatives of the Cut out and mail with check or money order Russian workingclass.
The Rand School made it known that it was proud SUBSCRIPTION BLANK to have as its instructors those, whose teaching the reactionary educational institutions found dangerous The Workers Council, to the preservation of capitalist society. BAST 11th STREET, NEW YORK CITY What then has happened to cause the ousting of Please enter my Subscription to The Workers Glassberg as a teacher in the Rand School?
Council for Ono Yeur at 00 (Six Months 50 Cts. The Rand School has taken the advice of the So You will find oorroot caount enclosed.
cialist Party leadership and decided to become politically respectable.
Name.
Glassberg was teaching history and political science.
His views on Sovietism, Proletarian Dictatorship, Address Democracy and sundry other Socialist matters are not City the same as those which the school attorney, Morris IKE all the other fields of reconstruction in To a certain extent every country physician was New Russia, the entire system of medical aid, really a martyr, doomed to hard, scantily paid work which the People Commissariat of Public Health in an atmosphere of arbitrary political rule and received as a legacy of the old regime, had to be re ignorance.
built on new foundations.
As a result of the economic disorganization which The People Commissariat of Public Health laid was caused by the war the conditions of the country down the following primary tasks: to strengthen doctor could not improve, but, with the spread of and develop the hospitals and other medical institu epidemics, became even more difficult.
tions; to make these institutions freely accessible Nevertheless, in this field, too, the Soviet Govto the population at large; and, finally, to raise the ernment has accomplished a great deal. New disquality of their service.
pensaries have been opened and new medical disEveryone knows the condition in which Russia tricts formed.
found itself at the moment when the Soviet Gov As a result, there is now a hospital district for ernment assumed power.
every eight to ten thousand of rural inhabitants, Exhausted by prolonged war which caused an whereas under the old regime the proportion was economic breakdown in all domains of industrial often as high as 84, 000.
life, and torn by civil war and blockade, Soviet Rus The change is even more conspicuous with respect sia confronted almost insurmountable obstacles in to the radius of service of the rural hospital district.
the way of the organization of medical aid to any At present a district serves a radius of from five adequate extent.
to seven miles, whereas formerly it had to reach as Triumph with Flying Colors far as 62 miles.
We need only mention the shortage of medical Free Treatment at Home personnel caused by the war. Even before the war Special attention has been paid to the organizaRussia had insufficient physicians. The shortage of tion of free treatment at home. For this purpose, medical supplies is also well known.
Moscow and her suburbs have been divided into 76 In spite of all these difficulties, the Soviet author districts, averaging 12 to 15 thousand people to one ities came out of their struggle with flying colors. physician, with a total of 96 physicians.
This is shown by the results, as they can be seen The Commissariat of Public Health has succeeded at this moment (March, 1921) on the basis of the in furnishing these districts with only 78 physicians.
official data.
Prior to 120, these physicians made 74, 395 visits, The total number of hospital cots in Soviet Russia maximum 13, 142 visits per month. the maximum in is 320, 000.
February, 1920, and the minimuni in July, 1920. This does not include 250, 000 beds in temporary In the districts of the province of Moscow on hospitals and barracks taking care of epidemics. November 1, 1920, there were 304 medical instituThe significance of these figures is clear when tions (including 27 dispensaries) with 18, 340 beds, compared with the 180, 000 hospital beds which was including 4, 440 for epidemical cases. The above all that Czarist Russia (including Poland, Finland, number includes two special institutions a physical Lithuania, and the Baltic states) could boast of. therapeutical hospital and a diagnostic institūte.
In all provincial capitals and in most district These institutions altogether accommodated towns free dispensaries have been installed.
24, 948 patients during August. 8316 beds. and In the large centers medical aid for emergency gave advice, on the average, to 285, 00 persons cases has been placed on a very solid foundation. monthly.
There are stations equipped with ambulances and Health Resorts and Rest Homes all necessary supplies from which physicians can In addition to all these activities the Soviet Govbe called at any hour to go to the scene of an ernment is developing the health resorts and estabaccident.
lishing rest homes on the same principles of accessiWork for Free Medical Aid bility and service without charge.
The Commissariat of Public Health is making In the Moscow district there are already 50 genprogress in its efforts to put the principle of free eral and special (for consumptives, nervous dismedical aid into practice thruout the territory of eases) sanatoria, which accommodated during the Soviet Russia.
10 months of 1920 18, 425 persons, including 825 Because of unattractive conditions of life in the children. This number also includes 10, 172 workers.
Russian villages only persons exclusively inspired in the course of the year 10 new sanatoria have been by the idea of serving the people had gone into this established.
work.
The results achieved in all these lines bear wit.
There had developed, however, a type of an ness to the energetic zeal with which the work of idealist country doctor who does not seek any the Commissariat of Health is being carried out.
material advantages and who considers it his moral and give ground for hope that finally the most obligation to aid the people with his knowledge. natural and legitimate right of every citizen will be The history of the Russian medical profession is granted to him, namely, the right to receive from full of examples of such idealists.
the state free medical aid of skillful physicians.