To the Editor:

Having family in Great Bend, I read the Great Bend Tribune article: “Wisdom vs. knowledge: Which one is better?” (July 27 issue). Personally, I’d like to have both.

As Becky Gillette pointed out, “good judgment” is prized, yet our society puts a lot of stock in people who have “Dr.” in front of their names. I have known men who had an 8th-grade education who were more intelligent than my credentialed university professors. Yet, by the same token, I have put my life in the hands of men with “Dr” prefixing their names. In any event, I want an ample supply of knowledge PLUS wisdom.

Not many people know much about Dr. Osirus Budha Randolph, M.D., but they have probably heard of this father, the spiritualist who was also a physician Dr. Paschal Beverley Randolph, M.D., who was a friend of Abraham Lincoln. He was allowed to board the funeral train of President Lincoln, but was rudely told to get off the train when some passengers objected to a man of partial African-American ancestry being aboard the train. Randolph complied and the train proceeded on.

Dr. Paschal B. Randolph’s son was of even more fairer skin. Osirus B. Randolph was born the year of his father’s death in 1875. By contrast, he was more widely accepted into the social circles of Toledo. He was a 32nd-degree Scottish Rite Mason as well as a Knight Templar York Rite Mason (open to Christians only) in Eu-Tah Commandery #6 when he died in 1929.

Dr Randolph was on the staff of two hospitals in Toledo, Ohio. Like his fellow practitioners in Great Bend, Kansas, he served the WHOLE community. He abided by the Hippocratic Oath; of which one of its key tenants is “to do no harm.” I wish our professional people as well as our elected and appointed officials took their oaths of office as seriously.

James A. Marples

Esbon, Kan.