Abstract
Even as naturopaths had achieved clinical success—and some professional success—by 1953, the path had not been entirely a smooth one. Many of the naturopaths had begun their careers in chiropractic and in achieving a professional identity of their own they had to deal with internecine chiropractic disputes, the Basic Science Laws, and some scandals and setbacks along the way.
When the Class of 1953 graduated from Western States, leadership of the naturopathic part of the natural healing professions was in Henry Schlichting’s hands as the president of the American Naturopathic Association (ANA), with A.R. Hedges in line to become Schlichting’s successor. There were headwinds though, just beginning to be felt.
Some of these headwinds had been building within the naturopathic movement itself since the 1930s. Benedict Lust criticized Dr Budden and Dr Carroll in early 1935 for proposing a continuing alliance based in the Pacific Northwest between broad-scope chiropractors and naturopaths. The 1935 annual ANA convention a few months later in San Diego was a crossroads event for naturopathic doctors (NDs) as a profession. Lust opened the convention with a presidential address that seemed to mark a “scofflaw” phase in Lust’s career as the head of the naturopathic movement. He told the convention that he had been prosecuted—and persecuted—for issuing diplomas to “doctors” from the American School of Naturopathy without a New York state charter to do so. The State of New York, he charged, was operating as an arm of the American Medical Association’s (AMA’s) “Medical Trust.” Only naturopaths, he told the convention, could decide who deserved to be called naturopaths, and not the state or the Medical Trust. Naturopathy needed to be accepted by the public to be legitimate, not accepted by the state. (Lust’s opening address to the 1935 ANA convention was reprinted in the Naturopath and Herald of Health of September, 1935.)
But for the first time, Robert Carroll brought a countervailing view to an ANA convention. These countervailing visions of the future of naturopathy were the visions that played themselves out in the course of the next 10 years within the ANA. In Carroll’s view, the ANA could not be a movement run by a permanent leadership but needed to truly be a professional organization seeking to advance a natural healing profession. In adopting a new constitution and bylaws proposed by Carroll, the ANA accepted Carroll’s vision of the future over Lust’s vision from the past.
By 1937, Carroll was comfortable that the ANA was in a good place; now it was time for the profession to accept that fact. At the end of 1937, as the chairman of the Executive Committee of the ANA, Carroll issued “An Appeal to All Naturopaths.” He opened by saying that he, for some time, had been “alarmed and rather disappointed with the seeming indifference of many of the Drugless physicians to our National Association.” “Progressive Naturopaths,” he said, were committed to the goal, through the ANA, that “our profession will take its place as a scientific body of learned naturopaths.” With science on its side, progressive naturopaths could, for example, “tell the world just why sulfanilamide is detrimental to the human body, and in just what kind of cases it is fatal or contraindicated … This must be our objective if we ever hope to merit the respect of the public and our educational institutions.” Changes had been made in the ANA in 1935 “to pull our profession out of the adolescent state which we have seemingly been unable to pass.”
As part of the change in ANA structure, the leadership of the ANA also gained some input into submission of ANA professional material in Naturopath and Herald of Health (NHH) in exchange for ANA dues monies being used to support Lust’s costs of publication. Using this position Carroll had an article by Dr Budden on the effects of the Basic Science Laws published in NHH. The article also appeared in one of the leading chiropractic journals.
This article was written in Budden’s inimitable style and was written only a couple of years away from the Oregon 1934 ballot fight that marked Budden’s initial response to Oregon adopting its Basic Science Law. In a classic Americanism argument, Budden pointed out that a “whole generation of college-bred men and women” would be good national policy as there “should be more and evermore of our youth attending institutes of higher learning, and provisions should be made to make this possible.” But there were policies that were intended to work against “Americans who value democracy” and that had the “sinister objective … nothing less than the establishment of exclusive privileges in education.”
This was where Budden argued the Basic Sciences Laws were directed. They were designed as a test of university-level sciences divorced from the application of the sciences to drugless, nonmedical practices. This was at a time when “the drugless world had developed its own schools and colleges; institutions of learning peculiar to human therapeutics from the non-medical standpoint, well-equipped and staffed by competent teachers.”
“Drugless schools,” he pointed out, “have no state support and few endowments; they must depend on contributions from alumni and upon tuition.” And as “a great national magazine (had) brought to light the unpleasant truth (was) that more people gave allegiance to physiological and drugless methods than to purely medical treatments.” If “the drugless schools continued to flourish and to increase in value to the community and the country at large, it soon be too late to attack them … Thus the basic science idea was born.”
Budden went on to argue, “It is important to note that in most states, and in the state of Oregon in particular,” the sciences called the basic sciences—anatomy, chemistry, physiology, pathology, and public health—were already taught and examined on for chiropractic and naturopathy. The purpose of the “extra” exam seemed to Budden to be an attempt to raise a barrier to drugless, nonmedical students of chiropractic and naturopathy with a clear, ulterior, and undemocratic motive: to keep these practitioners out of the marketplace: “Proponents of the law maintain that by this arrangement, which they contend is fair to all alike, the public is assured of a higher grade of practitioner … The police power of the state should be wielded to protect the public: not one particular group of physicians. The way of safety for the citizen is not in uniformity of thought in the healing arts, but in diversity.”
Dr Budden had come to be recognized by Robert Carroll as one of the leading “school men” in natural healing. Though Budden was very concerned about “a board composed of university lecturers or deans, men who know nothing of drugless practice and care less … prejudiced even before they occupy positions on the basic science board,” he came to believe within less than 10 years of dealing with the Oregon board that the examinations were fairly held—which will be addressed later in the following section.
A similar set of countervailing visions to those playing out within naturopathy played out within the National Chiropractic Association (NCA). In 1939, the influential broad-scope (or “liberal”) chiropractor from Montana, C.O. Watkins, DC, argued in an influential article that chiropractors should not favor separate licensing and degree status for naturopathy; rather chiropractic statutes should be sought legislatively recognizing that naturopathy was incorporated within a broad conception of “liberal” chiropractic and should be recognized as such (see the National Chiropractic Journal, issued in September 1939 [Vol. 8, No. 9]).
In the article, Watkins noted that nationwide there were “16,000 chiropractors, 95 per cent using other than straight Chiropractic … 2,000 naturopaths, many of them holding Chiropractic licenses who could also be considered liberal chiropractors.” Furthermore, Watkins noted, the NCA had considered the issue of backing naturopathic legislation and decided on a different policy: “That the NCA oppose any plan that would cause the passage of separate physio-therapy laws or naturopathic laws to cover liberal chiropractors, but rather favor liberalization of Chiropractic legislation where it desirable to legalize liberal practice.”
And yet even without a coordinated campaign, in several states naturopaths did—in fact—emerge from within chiropractic as states began to grant legalization to the chiropractic movement. This evolution can be observed by looking at the professional careers of Henry Schlichting, Jr, and 5 other naturopaths who became Western ANA members and officers in the postwar 1940s and 1950s.
By 1938, at age 23, he had graduated from Oklahoma City’s Carver Chiropractic College and relocated to Amarillo in the Texas panhandle where he joined “Dr Roy G. Moore’s Chiropractic Hospital – Serving the Entire Southwest” as “Assistant Specializing in Dislocations and Fractures.” By the fall of 1941, he had relocated to Midland, Texas, and opened his own practice, the Modern Health Clinic. He advertised himself as “Dr Henry Schlichting, Jr., Naturopathic Physician Specializing in Fractures and Dislocations.”
How Schlichting came to call himself a naturopath is somewhat unclear. In the mid-1930s, there was no licensing in Oklahoma or Texas for either chiropractors or naturopaths. Carver Chiropractic College in Oklahoma City taught obstetrics, minor surgery, and a broader use of adjustive technique than “straight” chiropractic. Texas was mostly dominated by straights through the influence of the Texas Chiropractic College in San Antonio, Texas. While Schlichting’s early training was in chiropractic, and he was first in chiropractic practice in the Amarillo area when he settled in Midland, Texas, in 1941, he allied himself with the naturopaths in Texas. (El Paso Herald Post, Monday, April 8, 1957; Amarillo Globe-Times (TX), Monday, May, 9, 1938; Amarillo Sunday News and Globe, Sunday, August 14, 1938; Midland Reporter Telegram, Wednesday, November 26, 1941 and Monday, November 24, 1941, and Monday, January 12, 1942.)
The careers of H. Riley Spitler of Ohio, W. H. Pyott of Utah, J. B. Branyan of South Carolina, and A.W. Kuts-Cheraux of Arizona were very similar. Prior to the late 1930s, each of these practitioners identified themselves as chiropractors (Spitler and Pyott as far back as WWI) and had graduated from chiropractic “mixer” colleges. They are all reported in newspaper coverage as officers in state chiropractic associations and as regular speakers at annual state chiropractic meetings, and then as of the late-1930s, they were reported as organizers, speakers, and officers of state naturopathic associations. In each of these states, legislatures adopted both “straight” chiropractic statutes and naturopathic statues for “mixers.” By 1946, each of these practitioners was a staunch member of Robert Carroll’s Western ANA. (Pyott: Salt City Telegram, Salt Lake City Tribune; Kuts-Chraux: Arizona Republic, Arizona Daily Star; J. B. Branyon: Spitler: The [Richmond, IN] Palladium-Item, Dayton [OH] Daily News; Branyan: The Greenville [SC] News.)
In the 1940s, although most developments that have been discussed already had been positive, there had been scandals involving practitioners identified as “naturopaths” as well. In late 1944, a group of liberal chiropractors who identified themselves chiropractor-naturopaths had formed the American Naturopathic Association of Michigan in the late 1930s. Their leaders were charged with bribing members of the Michigan state legislature during the 1939 and 1941 legislative sessions. The charges alleged that bribes had been paid in an effort to get a naturopathic law enacted and reports of the investigation by an inquiry judge, the charges brought and the trials and guilty pleas in the case dominated upper Midwest headlines from late 1944 through the end of 1945 (The Detroit Free Press; The Lansing [MI] State Journal).
A much bigger scandal—one that received much wider and more sensational coverage—emerged in Tennessee. By the time the events there had played out, the courts had laid the groundwork for the assault on naturopaths that took place 10 years later in the mid-1950s. Organized naturopathy came to Tennessee in December, 1937, when the American Naturopathic Association (ANA) of Tennessee was chartered. Guy W. Cheatham, DC, ND, had established the Nashville College of Chiropractic and Naturopathy earlier in the 1930s, and the school and the ANA of Tennessee operated in an unlicensed vacuum for several years while Cheatham was active in the NCA efforts on chiropractic education and in ANA national affairs. George A. Floden, DC, ND, of Los Angeles, California, was affiliated with Cheatham’s college and lectured there on a regular basis.
Matters in Tennessee changed significantly and abruptly in 1943 when the speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives, backed by the Crump political machine based in Shelby County (Memphis, Tennessee) pushed through a naturopathic licensing law over the veto of the state’s governor. A 1946 investigation suggested that 2 naturopaths who later were named to the naturopathic licensing board funneled several thousand dollars to the speaker (one bookkeeping entry showed $7835.00 for “1943 legislature”), their golfing buddy, in the form of “friendly” golfing bets.
By 1946, the examining board, which by statute kept its own books and records of licenses issued, had issued 917 Tennessee licenses to “naturopaths” from as far away as California, Sitka, Alaska, Mexico, Canada, and South Africa. The number could actually have been more than 1000 licenses issued as the books and records of the examining board “disappeared” from the offices of one of the board’s members while the records were under subpoena by state prosecutors. But investigation showed that some diplomas and licenses were sold as a package: $1500.00 for a diploma and $1500.00 for a license.
In December, 1946, 27 indictments were issued by a grand jury in Nashville, Tennessee. Those charged included Guy Cheatham, DC, ND, and his California associate George Floden, DC, ND, along with a California associate of Floden. Two Texas NDs who lectured at Cheatham’s Nashville College were charged as well as in the grand jury’s 34-page indictment, in which it was alleged that all naturopathy and all schools of naturopathy in Tennessee were “diploma mills.” Cheatham had, admittedly, issued “naturopathy” diplomas to earlier chiropractic graduates of his college so that they could apply for naturopathy licenses after the 1943 statute went into effect.
In all, 17 defendants submitted nolo contendere (“no contest”) pleas and were fined between $100.00 and $1000.00. The largest fines of $1000.00 went to 2 of the 3 members of the licensing board that the prosecutor said were “to blame for the conspiracy.” Charges against Flodden and his California associate were dropped when the State of California denied extradition to Tennessee on the charges.
More important, in the long run, the 1947 Tennessee legislature repealed the naturopathy act, criminalized any future practice of naturopathy in Tennessee, and invalidated all existing licenses to practice naturopathy in that state as of January 1947. Ten practitioners—all members of the ANA of Tennessee and all “clean” of any taint from the indictments—filed suit seeking a declaration by the courts that the repealed statute was constitutionally invalid as it deprived them of their valid property interest in their licenses to practice without due process and without any finding that naturopathy itself was a threat to the health and welfare of the citizens of Tennessee.
A chancery court (trial level) judge agreed, holding that the legislature did not have the constitutional authority to rescind the right to practice a legalized profession and to revoke, carte blanche, an entire class of professional licenses from practitioners who were without fault. A request to enjoin any enforcement of the statute through prosecutions for practicing medicine without a license was denied as beyond the authority of the court.
But before 1947 was out, the Tennessee Supreme Court had reversed this judgment. The Supreme Court held that the allegations of massive fraud in issuing licenses was serious enough to justify a sweeping response under the state’s constitutional police powers, without the necessity to review each license in question. Moreover, the Tennessee court held that it was well within the police power of the state legislature, under the same constitutional police powers to repeal an entire class of professional licenses—especially in the health care domain—at any time, within its reasonable discretion. That is, where licensing was concerned, the legislature taketh, and legislature taketh away.
The plaintiff naturopaths petitioned the US Supreme Court for review of the case and of the Tennessee Supreme Court’s holding on these constitutional issues. Review was denied. The table was set for a later broad assault on the licensing of natural healers across multiple states in the 1950s. (The [Nashville] Tennessean 1946-1947 coverage of the Tennessee scandal provides this narrative.)
The mischief and the stain originating in Tennessee spread quite quickly as well. In early 1947, as the scope of the Tennessee scandal was emerging and as the Tennessee legislature was repealing the Tennessee licensing law, investigations of licensing of naturopaths began in first Connecticut and then in South Carolina. In Connecticut, the State Health Commissioner—by state law a position held by a medical doctor (MD)—withheld licenses from 28 applicants that had been approved for licensing by the Connecticut Board of Naturopathic Examiners starting in 1942 because none of the applicants had passed state licensing examinations, neither the basic science exam nor the naturoepathic licensing exam. All of the applicants had been approved based upon a Connecticut healing arts licensing reciprocity statute. All of the applicants sought reciprocity based on licenses issued in South Carolina—a state with no basic science exam (The Hartford [CT] Courant, 1947-1949; The Charleston [SC] News and Courier, 1947-1949).
In 1946, 3 applicants brought suit in 2 actions against the health commissioner seeking a court order directing that their licenses be issued immediately (through a writ of mandamus, or “mandate”). Both applicants had failed the basic science exam more than once and then presented South Carolina licenses to the Connecticut Board, which had approved reciprocity applications. The applicants prevailed first in chancery (trial) court, then in the Connecticut Supreme Court.
The courts—the chancery court in June 1946 and the Supreme Court in April 1947—held that the health commissioner served in a ministerial capacity; that is, the health commissioner had no discretion in issuing licenses when the naturopathic board had approved the applications. The courts also found that the reciprocity statute allowed the approval without examination; but the Supreme Court agreed with the trial court that the health commissioner was trying to protect the public interest. The Supreme Court noted further that if evidence showed that the applications were fraudulent or the actions of the board were taken in bad faith members of the board should be removed from office.
Based on the issues developed in the court proceedings the Connecticut State police—which had the responsibility for licensing background checks—began an investigation into the reciprocity applications, which lasted 6 months. This led, in turn, to an overlapping investigation by the state police in South Carolina. A clear pattern was documented: Applicants from schools not recognized by South Carolina (which recognized only National College of Chicago and Metropolitan of Cleveland as of 1947), primarily applicants with diplomas from Lust’s American College of New York, had obtained licenses in Tennessee between 1943 and 1946 and then been licensed in South Carolina without examination.
Twenty-four applicants had then applied for licensing in Connecticut, again based on reciprocity. An investigation done in South Carolina by 2 Connecticut State police detectives disclosed that only 4 applicants had actually spent any time practicing in South Carolina, and no time had been spent in Tennessee. The South Carolina board had suspended the practice of accepting reciprocity applications from Tennessee in February 1947 when the Tennessee legislature outlawed naturopathy. But in 1947 and 1948, legislative pressure built up on the board and ND licensing in the state was under threat of repeal. By 1949, the repeal threat had been survived—for the present.
Much of this was a result of Connecticut adopting a Basic Science Law when only National, Metropolitan, Western States, UNHA of Denver and Los Angeles College—all chiropractic colleges with ND degree programs—had legitimate 4-year residency programs with a basic sciences curriculum. How had this been worked through by these colleges? By 1944, Dr Budden’s view of the Oregon Basic Sciences Examining Board had changed based on 10 years of experience with the board and its examinations.
In the October 1944 issue of The National Chiropractic Journal, Budden offered his updated assessment of the Oregon Basic Science Law in the article, “Effects of Basic Science Law in Oregon.” By this time, Budden noted that “we should like to make it clear … that we—the faculty and myself—have had some ten years of experience with the preparation of students for this test and, as a consequence, we feel that we make speak with some authority.” This notwithstanding that “public and candid discussion of the merits and demerits of basic science legislation has been regarded as a species of treason to Chiropractic (and Naturopathy).”
But strictly directed to the Oregon experience the Basic Science Law in general has shown his students to be ready join “one of the learned profession,” passing an examination given by a board of college and university professors chosen by the Board of Higher Education that “conducts its affairs with equity and intelligence (with) examinations that are fairly held and the papers fairly marked.” From all evidence Budden had observed—and from a success rate of 25 of 30 students passing the exam on the first time (83.33%)—Budden believed “that if a student follows the courses covering the required subjects as they are given in the accredited schools, faithfully and with diligence he will pass the test.”
He still noted that the public health part of the exam was based totally on the medical approach to the subject, requiring that the faculty had to teach students both “traditional” public health and the nonmedical alternative thinking. But he believed this was a price to pay in order that there was achieved a higher level of nonmedical education, that medical propaganda about a low level of nonmedical education was “wiped out,” that success on the exams favorably influenced the courts and the legislature, and that there was more favorable treatment of the nonmedical professions by the outside the medical domain “all-around.”
Finally, Budden noted that “of late efforts have been made to circumvent the law by setting up very dubious and possibly illegal ‘reciprocity.’” This he said was self-defeating: “There is only one way; to qualify enough candidates to show that the level of education makes two (licensing) examinations for the right to practice the healing arts preposterous.”
In this thinking, as in many respects, Dr Budden was almost 40 years ahead of his time.
Coming next issue: The career of Henry J. Schlichting, Jr, and medical dominance strikes at natural healing.
Biography
George W. Cody, JD, MA, BA, received his undergradute degree from Stanford University, his law degree from Willamette University, and his master’s degree from University of Washington. He practiced law for 25 years and has worked in public affairs, health policy, and medical history research. His original history of natural medicine is part of The Textbook of Natural Medicine.