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Page 140
unsightly hair with the solemnity appropriate to their high sounding title?"1 In the arguments that seek to persuade legislatures to enact such licensure provisions, the justification is always said to be the necessity of protecting the public interest. However, the pressure on the legislature to license an occupation rarely comes from the members of the public who have been mulcted or in other ways abused by members of the occupation. On the contrary, the pressure invariably comes from members of the occupation itself. Of course, they are more aware than others of how much they exploit the customer and so perhaps they can lay claim to expert knowledge.
Similarly, the arrangements made for licensure almost invariably involve control by members of the occupation which is to be licensed. Again, this is in some ways quite natural. If the occupation of plumbing is to be restricted to those who have the requisite capacity and skills to provide good service for their customers, clearly only plumbers are capable of judging who should be licensed. Consequently, the board or other body that grants licenses is almost invariably made up largely of plumbers or pharmacists or physicians or whatever may be the particular occupation licensed.
Gellhorn points out that "Seventy-five per cent of the occupational licensing boards at work in this country today are composed exclusively of licensed practitioners in the respective occupations. These men and women, most of whom are only part-time officials, may have a direct economic interest in many of the decisions they make concerning admission requirements and the definition of standards to be observed by licensees. More importantly, they are as a rule directly representative of organized groups within the occupations. Ordinarily they are nominated by these groups as a step toward a gubernatorial or other appointment that is frequently a mere formality. Often the formality is dispensed with entirely, appointment being made directly by the occupational associationas happens, for example, with the embalmers in North Carolina, the den-
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1 Walter Gellhorn, Individual Freedom and Governmental Restraints (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1956). Chapter entitled "The Right to Make a Living," p. 106.

 
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