The DM&E Controversy as a Larger Lesson

Applying the Hippocratic Oath

by Leigh Pomeroy

The Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern (DM&E) railroad expansion and loan issue has been brought up in these pages time and time again. Many Minnesota Monitor readers may say, "Who cares about some railroad that runs mainly in South Dakota, southern Minnesota and northern Iowa, if you include its subsidiary, the Iowa, Chicago & Eastern railroad? How does it affect me?"

First of all, railroads are very important to this country in shipping large quantities of goods and materials great distances. For such hauling they are far more efficient that trucks. Railroads helped this country grow, and today they are an indispensable part of this country's economic engine.

The DM&E plays not just an important, but a vital role in shipping agricultural-based products through the region it serves. Without it and other railroads in this area, commodity prices would soar, and with them the prices of many agricultural products we use, particularly those based on corn and soybeans. These include not just food but oils, livestock feed and plastics, among many others.

In supporting railroads or any other transportation system — highways, air travel, maritime shipping — the question becomes: How much should government be involved? And if government becomes involved, should it do so at a cost to such other competing interests as cities, counties, states, other businesses, the environment, cultural and religious groups like Native Americans and churches and, finally, just plain folks?

These are questions that lawmakers in Washington and state legislatures have to face every day. Such questions also arise at the county, city and, in Minnesota, township level.

"I want to expand my hog operation," a farmer says. "I just built a home two miles away," says another member of the community. How does government weigh these competing interests?

An Analogy

When health care professionals enter their fields, they are charged with numerous responsibilities. But ultimately, all the complexities of their jobs are boiled down to one simple phrase: the Hippocratic oath. For well more than 2,000 years, it has been a common denominator of the medical profession.

It is "First, do no harm."

Think about it. What if we applied this same very simple phrase to the workings of government? What would the consequences be?

For one thing, we'd not have a war in Iraq. For another, income taxes would be simpler. (Oh, how appropriate at this time of year!) For a third, the environment would be better safeguarded. For a fourth, all our children would have preventive health care. For a fifth, government would not take a position of picking winners and losers.

And that brings us back to the DM&E.

I have been critical of the railroad in these pages. It is not because I don't like the DM&E or see its benefit. It is because it has tried to use government's laws, for better or for worse, to improve its position at the expense of others.

If the railroad were a physician answerable to the Hippocratic oath, its request for special considerations to expand would fail miserably.

This is why that it is perhaps poetic justice that one of its chief opponents — perhaps the chief opponent — was the world famous Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. The Mayo Clinic saw that the government's approval of the DM&E's plan to ship coal through Rochester would do harm to its patients and operations.

First, do no harm

Inevitably, when government makes policy, it must often decide between the interests of one side and another. There, it crosses the line of "First, do no harm." The question then becomes "Do the results far outweigh the costs?"

Doctors and society have decided that cutting open someone to remove an inflamed appendix, for example, is a case where benefits (survival) far outweigh the costs (the incision). With cancer patients, the question can be much more difficult. Is the harm caused by an experimental chemotherapy procedure worth the possibility of a cure?

When government takes sides, the questions may be posed in simple terms for the electorate, but the answers and options are far from it. As much as we would like, we cannot quantify the "First, do no harm" rule. There is no such thing as 100 percent compliance. But what is appropriate? 90 percent? 75 percent? 51 percent?

We are a nation of laws based upon a constitution. When there is disagreement we rely upon a system of courts to decide right and wrong. Ultimately, we — and the courts — have found that this country must rely on concepts far older and more fundamental than that constitution.

One is "First, do no harm."