MSPCA-Angell History: The Nolen-Miles Bill

(The following article was originally published in MSPCA’s Our Dumb Animals, June 1948)

This bill has received nation-wide publicity and literally swamped the State House in Boston with mail.

State Senator Edward Rowe informed the writer that he had received about 72,000 letters of which approximately 62,000 requested the bill’s defeat and some 10,000 favored its passage.

Our Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals opposed the bill from the day of its introduction, but there is still some misunderstanding about our position and that of other humane societies. In order to clarify the issue we print below excerpts from a splendid editorial appearing in Our Animals, the official publication of The San Francisco SPCA, and written by that Society’s secretary and manager, Charles W. Friedrichs. His view represents our Society’s stand on the matter.

Human organizations in Massachusetts are at present engaged in fighting a particularly vicious piece of legislation which has been proposed in the Massachusetts Legislature and is known as the Nolen-Miles Bill. Specifically it is Senate Bill 264, and it proposes to make every public pound and animal shelter in the State of Massachusetts, even those which are privately operated by humane organizations, animal collecting stations for experimental laboratories both public and private.

Setting forth a series of requirements, the practical applications of which would amount to the confiscation of private property, the bill is defended by its proponents as a “scientific necessity.”

The Massachusetts SPCA and the Animal Rescue League of Boston, the two leading humane organizations in the State of Massachusetts, are actively and courageously opposing the passage of the Nolen-Miles Bill. It should be noted that these societies and others of like character throughout the United States, including The San Francisco SPCA, have never at any time engaged in attacks upon the medical profession nor attempted to thwart in any manner the progress of scientific research involving the use of animals. None of these organizations has ever entered into the controversy which has raged between the medical profession on the one hand and the anti-vivisection movement on the other, either for or against animal experimentation, PER SE. However, the humane societies and SPCA’s are unequivocal and firm with a strength of purpose which knows no yielding in their opposition to the release of animals by compulsion of law from public pounds or animal shelters for experimental purposes.

It should be noted, also, that this attitude of protection for the lost or stray animal is far from limited to opposition to their use for experimental purposes. It is complete and consistent in its application to any and all forms of usage which are not for the benefit of the animal concerned.

There is involved here a fundamental and ethical substance of freedom and democracy as we believe in them in these United States. The operation of an animal shelter is regarded by SPCA’s and humane societies as a sacred public trust. In this believe we are confident that any right-thinking individual, whether or not he is a pet owner, will concur. If the medical profession were to succeed under the guise of scientific necessity to break down the high standards and fundamental rights of the citizens in this instance, what, indeed, would prevent further inroads being made upon these rights in the self-same name of “scientific progress”?

The scientific mind is learned and developed, but it is often narrow, arbitrary, and ruthless. It might be as dangerous to the people of a community at large to be dictated to by a single group of scientists as it would be for the dictation to emanate from a military group, a single party group, or any other specialized minority.

The arguments being advanced in favor of the Nolen-Miles Bill are specious because they do not concern the question under debate. The virtues of the great discoveries which have been made through animal experimentation are being extolled by the proponents of the measure; of course every statement made in this connection begs the question because the SPCA’s and humane societies are not opposing animal experimentation. They are opposed to the adoption of a confiscatory and oppressive law or laws without precedent in any state in the United States, which would force private organizations serving the public good to become the impotent satellites of other private and governmental organizations. They challenge statements to the effect that such a step would be a “scientific necessity.” They reiterate their position, taken long ago, which the passage of time has but served to strengthen – that animals which, for one reason or another find their way into a public pound or animal shelter should be humanely cared for and disposed of in only one of three ways: (a) by being returned to their owners, (b) by being placed in new homes, or, (c) by being humanely destroyed. The Nolen-Miles Bill would completely destroy this protective and proper procedure in Massachusetts. It would provide an opening wedge for similar confiscatory legislation elsewhere. It would strike the most severe blow to the humane movement in the United States in one of the most important states in the United States.

It must be defeated.

The Nolen-Miles Bill will not be enacted into law in Massachusetts this year. A special committee consisting of five Representatives, three Senators, and three appointees by the Governor, will study its provisions and report back to the Legislature in December.