…There were clear signs of opposition, as citizens organized against the compulsory vaccination of school children. Many well-respected physicians spoke out against the use of serums or vaccines to inoculate people against the flu. Despite this, the U.S. Public Health Service, the national agency responsible for coordi- nating public health efforts and providing financial and organizational support to more local organizations, endorsed inoculation. Occasionally, public workers would be forced to undergo inoculation, such as in Louisville, Kentucky, where the entire police force was required to be treated with serum. This represented a clear expansion of government power, which had not been seen before, and a decoupling of the scientific consensus from the public policy which claimed to represent it.
…The widespread repression of civil liberties experienced in the U.S. during the Span ish Influenza epidemic is notable for several reasons. For one, it occurred on the local level. While many local governments, such as Boston, Philadelphia, and Cleveland, implemented Surgeon General Blue’s recommendations, head of the federal U.S. Public Health Service, the local enforcement and maintenance of anti-flu measures demonstrates the repression of civil liberties had a significant local element. Therefore, the broader repression of civil liberties not only included the wartime measures of the federal government, but also the anti-flu measures of countless local governments. These anti-flu laws are comparable to the contemporary Creel Committee, Espionage Act, or Palmer Raids, which represent expansions in government power at the expense of civil liberties.
