Changes

To limit opposition and debate within the medical community, the legislative committee refused to draft a bill “until shortly before it was sent to the legislature.” Strong wanted to avoid telling members specifically what type of medical bill they were planning to propose. After receiving the fundraising solicitation, several physicians who had been practicing in Oregon “ten, fifteen or twenty years without a diploma, began to ask, ‘What kind of bill are you going to pass? Are you going to shut us out?” Strong evaded this question by sending postcards to any members who requested information about the bill; the cards stated that “the Committee ha[s] not as of yet drafted a bill. We have substantially agreed that a bill must be a reasonable in all its provisions; and it has proposed to not disturb the present relations of anyone practicing medicine and surgery at the time the bill becomes a law.”<ref><i>Proceedings Sixteenth Annual Meeting</i> (1889): 205-206.</ref>

[[File:Oregon_State_Capitol_1909.jpg|left|thumbnail|300px|Oregon State Capital (1876-1935) in Salem, Oregon]]

The legislative committee approached legislator and Regular physician, Dr. James V. Pope, to introduce the Oregon association’s bill in the House. Pope studied medicine in St. Louis and worked as a physician during the Civil War, but he was not a medical school graduate.<ref>O. Larsell, <i>The Doctor in Oregon: A Medical History</i> (Portland, Oregon State Historical Society 1947), 210.</ref> After Pope introduced the bill, he abruptly threatened to scuttle it. Strong wrote, “[N]ow came to the point to find out where the shoe pinched with Dr. Pope; but I knew it pinched somewhere and surmised that probably he wanted the credit of introducing and passing the Medical Bill, and wanted it to be known as Pope’s bill.” Strong also stated that rumors had spread in the legislature that the OSMA raised a lot of money to smooth passage of the bill.<ref><i>Proceedings Sixteenth Annual Meeting</i> (1889): 206.</ref>

After the OSMA offered Pope two hundred dollars and told him who else they planned to give money to, the bill began moving swiftly through the legislature. Within a few days of the committee’s meeting with Pope, Pope was selected to serve on a special legislative committee to review the legislation. Pope’s committee acted quickly and offered a few amendments. The only meaningful amendment created an exemption from licensing for any physician who practiced in the state when the law went into effect.<ref><i>The Journal of the House of the Legislative Assembly of the State of Oregon for the Fifteenth Regular Session 1889, 15th House</i>, 1889, 305.</ref> Pope’s amendment provided a broader protection for any physician than what the original bill offered. Under the original bill, Oregon physicians who had practiced in Oregon could have obtained licenses, but the licenses would have stated whether the doctor had attended medical school. Pope’s amendment ensured that physicians who were practicing without a diploma, such as himself, would not be listed any differently than other doctors in their community; the county clerk’s registry would indicate only that Pope and his ilk were simply practicing physicians and surgeons. The local registry would not state whether a physician went to medical school.

====Passing a Bill====