to end their misery. The 1980s witnessed a flourishing of concern about animals and a proliferation of new organizations, many influenced by the emergence of a philosophy holding that animals had inherent rights. Those committed to the purest form of animal rights rejected any human use of animals. In this changing context, HSUS faced new challenges. As newer animal organizations adopted more radical approaches to achieve their goals, the organization born in anti-establishment politics now found itself identified—and sometimes criticized—as the "establishment" group of record. History In 1954, HSUS's founders decided to create a new kind of animal organization, based in the nation's capital, to confront national cruelties beyond the reach of local societies and state federations. Humane slaughter became an immediate priority and commanded a substantial portion of the organization's resources. Myers and his colleagues also viewed this first campaign as a vehicle for promoting movement cohesion. Humane slaughter legislation In 1958, the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act passed, which required the proper use of humane slaughter methods at slaughterhouses subject to federal inspection. Only four years after HSUS's formation, Myers pointed out that the movement had united, for the first time in eighty-five years, to achieve enactment of federal legislation that would affect the lives of tens of millions of animals. He was encouraged that "hundreds of local societies could lift their eyes from local problems to a great national cruelty." Ban of experimentation upon animals HSUS also made the use of animals in research, testing, and education an early focus. In the post–World War II era, an increasingly assertive biomedical research community sought to obtain animals from pounds and shelters handling municipal animal control contracts. Local humane societies across the nation resisted. HSUS sought to bolster the movement's strong opposition to pound seizure, believing that no public pound or privately operated humane society should be compelled by law to provide animals for experimental use. HSUS took the position that animal experimentation should be banned, and in the 1950s it placed investigators in laboratories to gather evidence of substandard conditions and animal suffering and neglect. The HSUS was not an anti-vivisection society, Myers explained in 1958. Rather, it stood for the principle that "every humane society ... should be actively concerned about the treatment accorded to such a vast number of animals." Beginning in the 1990s, HSUS board member David O. Wiebers, a medical doctor associated with the