Read Online Poison Penmanship: The Gentle Art of Muckraking by Jessica Mitford - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jessica Mitford
Tags: Literary, Biography & Autobiography, Language Arts & Disciplines, Essay/s, Literary Collections, Journalism
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cash must be realized to meet all the overhead and operating costs of the establishment for a full year. Little wonder that the funeral industry has tended to become one of the most predatory and competitive in the country, that behind the decorous façade of the funeral home lurks some of the slickest salesmanship to be found this side of a Baghdad bazaar.
A network of legal realities and myths tends to keep funeral costs sky-high. For example, the California Health and Safety Code (Section 9625 et seq. ) imposes fantastic requirements for the construction of mausoleums and columbariums. Unlike schools or homes, they must be earthquake-proof, fireproof, waterproof, and their exterior trim must be of “travertine, serpentine marble or Grade A exterior type marble only.” There is an almost universal belief in California, carefully nurtured by the undertakers, that the law requires embalming and the use of a casket in all cases of death. Three Oakland morticians, selected at random from the phone book, assured me that cremation without a casket is illegal. One added, with some truth, “The average person has neither the facilities nor the inclination to haul dead bodies around.” However, a quick check with the State Board of Health revealed that there are no such legal requirements, and that in fact indigents are frequently cremated “as is,” without benefit of casket or embalming.
Legal skirmishes are frequently part of the guerrilla warfare waged by the burial cooperatives against entrenched morticians, and many of the co-ops have had their “day in court.” The Cooperative League of the U.S.A., while stressing the necessity for competent legal advice in organizing a funeral cooperative, nevertheless points out that “the legal battles with the private undertakers over the organization of the co-op can be used to great advantage, if handled correctly. One co-op association greatly increased its membership as a result of widespread newspaper publicity over a court case” ( Cooperative Funeral Associations , James Myers, Jr., published by Cooperative League of the U.S.A.). The Chico Burial Society, prosecuted at the behest of local morticians for engaging in an insurance business without a license, grew in the course of the trial to an amazing 2,000 membership in this tiny California community of 12,000.
Existing co-ops have been organized in a variety of ways. Some function as a trade union service, as the Union Co-op Burial Service of United Auto Workers in Detroit; others, like the Cleveland Memorial Society, were formed by church groups. Some of the co-ops maintain their own burial facilities while others have negotiated contracts with one or more morticians who, guaranteed a large volume of assured business from co-op members, are willing to buck the disapproval of their colleagues. From time to time, a rare— very rare—soul will be found in the funeral business who has become disgusted with some of the financial practices of the profession and who welcomes the formation of a cooperative funeral society.
SIMPLICITYISTHEOBJECTIVE
The East Bay, California, Memorial Association, which grew out of an existing co-op center in Berkeley, is typical of this small but growing movement. Its literature stresses community education for simplicity in disposal of the human dead, and provides detailed information on how to go about willing one’s body to a medical school or hospital for research purposes. The Association offers what it is pleased to call a “lifetime membership” covering an entire family for a single payment of ten dollars. It is interracial and requires that its contracting funeral directors follow a policy of nondiscrimination. Nonsectarian, it provides for religious services or memorials of any denomination desired. Although, like most of the co-ops, the Association holds cremation to be preferable to burial, this matter is left to the discretion of the family. The cost of funerals arranged by
A network of legal realities and myths tends to keep funeral costs sky-high. For example, the California Health and Safety Code (Section 9625 et seq. ) imposes fantastic requirements for the construction of mausoleums and columbariums. Unlike schools or homes, they must be earthquake-proof, fireproof, waterproof, and their exterior trim must be of “travertine, serpentine marble or Grade A exterior type marble only.” There is an almost universal belief in California, carefully nurtured by the undertakers, that the law requires embalming and the use of a casket in all cases of death. Three Oakland morticians, selected at random from the phone book, assured me that cremation without a casket is illegal. One added, with some truth, “The average person has neither the facilities nor the inclination to haul dead bodies around.” However, a quick check with the State Board of Health revealed that there are no such legal requirements, and that in fact indigents are frequently cremated “as is,” without benefit of casket or embalming.
Legal skirmishes are frequently part of the guerrilla warfare waged by the burial cooperatives against entrenched morticians, and many of the co-ops have had their “day in court.” The Cooperative League of the U.S.A., while stressing the necessity for competent legal advice in organizing a funeral cooperative, nevertheless points out that “the legal battles with the private undertakers over the organization of the co-op can be used to great advantage, if handled correctly. One co-op association greatly increased its membership as a result of widespread newspaper publicity over a court case” ( Cooperative Funeral Associations , James Myers, Jr., published by Cooperative League of the U.S.A.). The Chico Burial Society, prosecuted at the behest of local morticians for engaging in an insurance business without a license, grew in the course of the trial to an amazing 2,000 membership in this tiny California community of 12,000.
Existing co-ops have been organized in a variety of ways. Some function as a trade union service, as the Union Co-op Burial Service of United Auto Workers in Detroit; others, like the Cleveland Memorial Society, were formed by church groups. Some of the co-ops maintain their own burial facilities while others have negotiated contracts with one or more morticians who, guaranteed a large volume of assured business from co-op members, are willing to buck the disapproval of their colleagues. From time to time, a rare— very rare—soul will be found in the funeral business who has become disgusted with some of the financial practices of the profession and who welcomes the formation of a cooperative funeral society.
SIMPLICITYISTHEOBJECTIVE
The East Bay, California, Memorial Association, which grew out of an existing co-op center in Berkeley, is typical of this small but growing movement. Its literature stresses community education for simplicity in disposal of the human dead, and provides detailed information on how to go about willing one’s body to a medical school or hospital for research purposes. The Association offers what it is pleased to call a “lifetime membership” covering an entire family for a single payment of ten dollars. It is interracial and requires that its contracting funeral directors follow a policy of nondiscrimination. Nonsectarian, it provides for religious services or memorials of any denomination desired. Although, like most of the co-ops, the Association holds cremation to be preferable to burial, this matter is left to the discretion of the family. The cost of funerals arranged by
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