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Page 141
tists in Alabama, the psychologists in Virginia, the physicians in Maryland, and the attorneys in Washington."2
Licensure therefore frequently establishes essentially the medieval guild kind of regulation in which the state assigns power to the members of the profession. In practice, the considerations taken into account in determining who shall get a license often involve matters that, so far as a layman can see, have no relation whatsoever to professional competence. This is not surprising. If a few individuals are going to decide whether other individuals may pursue an occupation, all sorts of irrelevant considerations are likely to enter. Just what the irrelevant considerations will be, will depend on the personalities of the members of the licensing board and the mood of the time. Gellhorn notes the extent to which a loyalty oath was required of various occupations when the fear of communist subversion was sweeping the country. He writes, "A Texas statute of 1952 requires each applicant for a pharmacist's license to swear that 'he is not a member of the Communist Party or affiliated with such party, and that he does not believe in and is neither a member of nor supports any group or organization that believes in, furthers or teaches the overthrow of the United States Government by force or any illegal or unconstitutional methods.' The relationship between this oath on the one hand and, on the other, the public health which is the interest purportedly protected by the licensing of pharmacists, is somewhat obscure. No more apparent is the justification for requiring professional boxers and wrestlers in Indiana to swear that they are not subversive . . . A junior high school teacher of music, having been forced to resign after being identified as a Communist, had difficulty becoming a piano tuner in the District of Columbia because, forsooth, he was 'under Communist discipline.' Veterinarians in the state of Washington may not minister to an ailing cow or cat unless they have first signed a non-Communist oath."3
Whatever one's attitude towards communism, any relationship between the requirements imposed and the qualities
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2 Ibid. pp. 14041.
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3Ibid., pp. 12930.

 
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