Education: Oxford v. Norfolk

• Share

Two young students from Britain, members of the Oxford University debating team, stood one evening last week, outside the Norfolk State Prison Colony, 15 miles southwest of Boston, and gazed up at the big concrete walls. "I have one ancestor who was a murderer," said Richard Taverne. Said William Rees-Mogg: "My only criminal ancestor was a bigamist in the 18th Century." After delivering themselves of these genealogical notes, the two Britons marched up to the gatehouse and went inside. After a 2½-month undefeated tour of U.S. campuses, the Oxonians were making one of their last U.S. appearances—this time with the Norfolk prison debating team.

Norfolk was more than ready for them. Its two star debaters, Murdo the Robber and Bill the Bad Check Passer, had spent weeks getting ready for the occasion. They had studied in the library, written to Washington and the American Medical Association, pored over reams of statistics and dozens of reports. Like Oxford, Norfolk had an honorable record to uphold. In 16 years of "intercollegiate" debating, it had taken on such teams as Harvard, Princeton and M.I.T. Its score: 34 victories, 4 draws, only 14 defeats.

Question of Distribution. Norfolk had never encountered anything quite like Oxford before, and by 6:30 p.m. the big auditorium was packed with 400 convicts, all staring fixedly at their two guests. After a few remarks by the chaplain ("I wish this could be a home & home debate"), Charlie the Program Chairman (armed robbery) introduced the speakers, and Francis the Timekeeper (housebreaking) started his stop watch. The question of the evening: "Resolved that this house recognize the need for a free national health service." First speaker for the affirmative: Oxford's Richard Taverne.

Taverne conceded that the U.S. had an excellent health record. But "the question," said he, "is whether the medical services are adequately distributed." He pointed out that in U.S. states with poor medical service, the death rate is noticeably higher.

Murdo the Robber, primed by the A.M.A., was also armed with statistics, all proving what a dismal failure a socialized health plan would be, compared to laissez-faire U.S. medicine. Oxford's Rees-Mogg was ready with an answer. "The best preventive medicine," said he, "is early diagnosis. The best way to encourage people to do this is to make medical services free. People will go to the doctors when they do not have to pay."

Political Camouflage. Finally, Bill the Check Passer rose to speak, and his argument was just the sort of thing his audience understood. "Guests of Norfolk, voluntary and involuntary," he began, "a free national health service will not make medical services better, but worse. The neurotics and malingerers will swamp our doctors and make it impossible for them to tend the really sick. I have been an unwilling native in a socialist Utopia for some time, and I know it will not work . . . This talk of free service is just political camouflage."