Elkin
"The Best Little Town
in North Carolina"
PUBLISHED WEEKLY
Thurmond Chatham Grew Up With Business
First Hospital Care
Plan Was Organized
Over Ten Years Ago
4,500,000 Persons in 24 States Now Subscribe to Voluntary
Health Security Programs. First Plan Was Brought
into Being by Group of Texas Teachers
By WILLIS YOUNG
Chicago—Ten years ago in
Dallas, Texas, some school teach
ers got to talking about some of
the uncertain and troublesome
things in life—especially sickness
and hospital bills.
They decided to do something
about it.
Why not, they reasoned, budget
the estimated cost of the usual
stay in a hospital and pay a small
amount each month in advance?
The Baylor University hospital
encouraged the teachers to try
the experiment.
Thus in December, 1929, was
organized the first voluntary hos
pital care plan to- receive wide
public attention, with 1,500 school
teachers as members.
Today finds the so-called "group
hospitalization" movement grown
to include at least 56 hospital ser
vice plans in 24 states—with 4,-
500,000 subscribers.
The trend toward hospital care
plans, how they operate and the
debates over aims and medical
problems provide an interesting
chapter in the story of the av
erage man's quest for health se
curity.
Those who fear unexpected
hospital bills were attracted by
"pay before you go" idea, the
American Medical association re
porting recently that:
Holds Much Interest
"Group hospitalization plans
Golden Guernsey Milk
Klondike Farm has supplied milk to Elkin and Winston-Salem for a num- M
ber of years. The Winston-Salem City Health Department has placed v
Klondike Golden Guernsey milk ahead of all milk sold on that market. This jfjjjbj - j ifll
record has been maintajnid by painstaking care and attention to every
KLONDIKE detail by trained men, th#M|h average butterfat content, the distinctive A 'II
flavor, the golden yellovNwbr and the extremely low bacteria count. \ AK m 1
GOLDEN GUERNSEY MILK ft ll W§|
Is Produced Under the Inspection and "V" V "M ■ 81' Ml
Supervision of the |\ 1011/1 1K P C\ I 11 If
AMERICAN GUERNSEY AV 1 KJ I IVHI XV W JL Cl IXII I MLggggg^
CATTLE CLUB T. F. Cooley, Manager Phone 30-JC Elkin, N. C.
THE ELKIN TRIBUNE
which provide for prepayment of
hospital service have aroused
more interest and discussion dur
ing the last five years than any
other development in medical ec
onomics."
Although no two hospital ser
vice plans are identical in detail,
because of varying local condi
tions and different state statutes,
all are founded on the same be
lief —that sickness is a hazard,
both from a medical and econo
mic point of view.
This conviction was expressed
by C. Rufus Rorem, director of
the American Hospital associa
tion's hospital service commission,
established in 1937 to assist and
coordinate the movement.
"No one can tell when he will
be sick, or wnat his sickness will
cost him," Rorem said.
"This simple fact underlies the
continual furore about socialized
medicine and explains the recur
ring demand in America for some
type of health insurance, a pro
cedure included in the health pro
grams of most' other important
countries."
He remarked that although the
American standards of health
service are high—and the death
rate low—the average expendi
ture for health service is only
four per cent, of the national in
come, less than is spent for cos
metics, chewing gum and tobac
co.
Uncertainty of Sickness
"Yet there is a continuous com
plaint about the costs of medical
care," he asserted. "Why? The
answer lies in the uncertainty of
sickness costs to the individual."
It is Rorem's contention this
uncertainty can be removed, as
far as hospital bills are concern
ed, by having a large group con
tribute equal amounts to a com
mon fund to be used to purchase
the necessary hospital services
for members.
Such "group budgeting," he
said, is "merely an application of
the principles of insurance."
The Baylor plan appears to
have started the ball rolling, al
though co-operative hospital ser
vice for students was started as
early as 1900 by the University of
Illinois, and a limited plan was
introduced in 1918 at Grinnell, la.
The plan in Dallas had not op
erated much more than a year
before other employed groups
asked to join, with the result that
in 1938 some 18,000 persons were
eligible for benefits in the Uni
versity's hospital.
By 1931, the Baylor plan had
been adopted by other hospitals
in the Southwest, most of them
paying part of the Subscribers'
annual dues to a sales agency
which enrolled members.
It was to this commercialism of
the concept of group hospitaliza
tion that the medical association
objected, the A. M. A. insisting
that money paid by subscribers
ought to be used entirely for hos
pital benefits, not partly for
salesmen.
Free Choice Plans
Hospital care plans now require
that dues be paid to a separately
incorporated association whose
trustees serve without pay and all
the association employees are
paid on a salary basis, not
through commissions.
Under some early hospital
plans, competition developed in
communities with more than one
hospital, but soon the city-wide,
(Continued on Page 5, This Sec.)
ELKIN, NORTH CAROLINA
President of Chatham Company
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Thurmond Chatham, president of the Chatham Manu-
facturing Company, succeeded his father, the late Hugh
Gwyn Chatham, in that capacity in 1929. Mr. Chatham
worked in the Chatham plants during summer vacations,
learning the business from the ground up. At the time of
his father's death he was treasurer of the company.
As President of the
Chatham Company,
Has Done Real Job
W'ork Is
Foundation
All Progre
I am the foundation of all busi
ness. I am the fount of all pros
perity. I am the parent of genius.
I am the salt that gives life its
savor. I have laid the foundation
of every fortune in America, from
Rockefeller's down. I must be
loved before I can bestow my
greatest blessing and achieve my
greatest ends. Loved, I make life
sweet and purposeful and fruit
ful. I can do more to advance a
youth than his own parents, be
they ever so rich. Fools hate me;
wise men love me. I am repre
sented in every loaf of bread that
comes from the oven, in every
train that crosses the continent,
in every newspaper that comes
from the press. I am the mother
of democracy. All progress springs
from me. What am I? I am Work.
—Contribution.
Where Is Wind?
Jackie—Say, Dad, can I ask a
question?
Dad—l suppose so—let's have
it.
Jackie Where is the wind
when it don't blow?
Teacher—Frankie, what is an
adult?
Frankie —An adult is a person
that has stopped growing except
in the middle.
CHATHAM
MFG. COMPANY
EDITION
$1.50 PER YEAR
SUCCEEDED HIS FATHER
Has Made Every Effort to
Make Organization Best
of Kind in U. S.
BELOVED BY EMPLOYES
Richard Thurmond Chatham,
president of the Chatham Manu
facturing company, is a native of
Elkin and spent the early years
of his life here. Iti 1907 his fam
ily moved to Winston-Salem in
order to be nearer the markets
for Chatham products, transpor
tation and communication being
much more difficult and unsatis
factory then than now.
Mr. Chatham received his edu
cation in the graded schools, Sa
lem Boy's School in Winston-Sa
lem; Woodberry Forest School at
Woodberry Forest, Va.; the Uni
versity of North Carolina, and
was a student at Yale University
when the United States entered
the World War. In 1917 he vol
unteered for sex-vice in ttuf United
States Navy and for several
months was stationed on a train
ing ship at Norfolk, Va. He saw
considerable service on a sub
chaser along the United States
coast, and was later transferred
to the staff of Admiral. Andrews
on the flagship Mississippi in
European waters, where he re
mained until the end of the war.
During school vacations Mr.
Chatham worked in the com
pany's plants and became thor-
(Continued on Page 5, This Sec.)