Full text of Statements and Speeches of Robert L. Owen : Department of Public Health : Speech in the Senate of the United States

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SIX TY -FIR ST CONGRESS, SECOND SESSION.

Department of Public Health.
S P E E C H

EON.

ROBERT
OP

L.

OWEN,

O K L A H O M A ,

I n the Senate of the U nited States,
Thursday, March 2k, 1910.

„l h« ®enat® havIn,S under consideration the bill (S. 6049)
a department o f public health, and fo r other purposes—

establishing

Mr. OWEN sa id :
Mr. P resident : For years I have deeply desired to see laws
passed by the United States which would render efficient and
coordinate its agencies for the preservation of the public health,
and in this way promote the protection o f our people against
the preventable death and disease, which not only has greatly
impaired the working efficiency of the American people, imposed
hundreds of millions of dollars o f unnecessary costs upon the
federal Treasury, but has prevented an increase in our popu­
lation of many millions o f people. All other bills and adminis­
tration measures, however urgent, are, in my opinion, o f minor
importance compared to this subject of gigantic national interest.
I ho I resident o f the United States takes a deep concern in
this matter. He has frequently declared his desire to have
all health and sanitary agencies o f the Government brought
together in one efficient body. He has expressed no objection
to a department o f public health, and I feel authorized to say
so, but without committing himself to a department or a bu­
reau, as preferring one to the other, he has vigorously expressed
biniself i u favor o f the concentration o f all these health and
sanitary agencies into one coordinate efficient body.
Mr. President, the people of the United States suffer a pre­
ventable loss o f over GOO,000 lives per annum, a daily senseless
sacrifice o f an army o f over 1,700 human beings every day of
tfie year, over one a minute from one year’s end to another, and
year after year. This terrible loss might be prevented by rea­
sonable safeguards under the cooperation of the federal and
state authorities, each within strict constitutional limits and
with an expenditure that is utterly trivial in comparison with its
benefits.
These proven table deaths are caused by polluted water, im­
pure find . u tQ ated food and drugs, epidemics, various pre­
ventable diseases—tuberculosis, typhoid and malarial fevers—
unclean cities, and bad sanitation.
Measuring the money value o f an American citizen at Si 700
this preventable loss by death alone is one thousand millions of
dollars annually, equal to the gross income o f the United States
Government.
There are 3,000,000 people seriously sick all the time in the
United States from preventable causes, o f whom 1,000,000 are in
the working period o f life ; about three-quarters o f a million
actual workers losing on an average o f $700 per annum, an ap­
proximate loss from illness o f five hundred millions, and adding
a reasonable allowance for medicine, medical attendance, special
food and care, a like sum o f five hundred millions, these losses
would make another thousand million dollars o f preventable loss
to the people of the United States.
AUTHO RITX FOB FACTS STATED.

Do you Imagine that these figures are exaggerated or fan­
ciful, Mr. President? They are confirmed to us by the report
of the Committee of One Hundred on National Health in Its Re­
port on National Vitality. (Bulletin No. 30, p. 12.) This bul-




3 5 5 4 0 — 8883

letin was prepared by Prof. Irving Fisher, professor of political
economy of Yale University, with the assistance of some of the
most learned men in the whole world, including Prof. Lafayette B.
Mendel, of Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University; Prof.
M. V. O’ Shea, University of Wisconsin; Dr. Charles W. Stiles,
a chief of the hygienic laboratory of the United States Public
Health and Marine-Hospital Service; Robert M. O’Reilly, for­
mer Surgeon-General of the United States Arm y; Prof. C. R.
Henderson, University o f Chicago; and the officials of the Va­
rious public-health societies and of the American Medical Asso­
ciation; Dr. George M. Kober, dean of the Georgetown Medical
College; Dr. Norman E. Ditman, Columbia University; Dr. J.
H. Kellogg, of Battle Creek; Hiram J. Messenger, actuary of
the Travelers’ Insurance Company, and so forth.
Mr. President, our pension roll of over $150,000,000 per
annum is three-fourths of it due to illness and death from dis­
eases that were preventable. Under a wise administration in
the past the United States would to-day be saving an annual
charge of over $100,000,000 on the pension list, and would have
saved under this heading over $2,000,000,000 and much human
misery and pain.
Will you fail to listen when your attention is called to the
vast importance of this matter and to the high standing of tht” c
who vouch for the accuracy and reliability of this statement?
W ill you, as the representatives of the people of the United
States, fail to investigate and to act in a matter of such conse­
quence?
There are the vital facts.
There are the authorities.
ORIGIN OF BILL

G049.

Mr. President, nine years ago I had the importance of this sub­
ject called to my attention by an article read before the Cincin­
nati Academy o f Medicine, October 7, 1901, on “ Preventable
disease in the Army of the United States— cause, effect, and
remedy,” by Maj. William O. Owen, a surgeon in the United
States Army, printed in the Journal o f the American Medical
Association October 26, 1901, where he pointed out over 19,000
cases o f typhoid fever in four camps—Chickamauga, Alger,
Meade, and Jacksonville—with 1,460 deaths of the finest young
men of America, nearly all o f which was a preventable loss.
The typhoid cases, with resultant deaths, were due to ignoring
the laws of sanitation. (Exhibit 9.) I drew this bill (S. 6049)
in the hope o f cooperating with the administration in making
effective the most important o f all forms of conservation—the
conservation of human life— and in the hope of making effective
the expressed desires of the numerous associations and societies
of the United States who stand for a department of public
health.
Mr. President, since introducing this bill I have been receiv­
ing letters from the most distinguished men in the United
States indorsing th e p rin cip le uf tlie bill a n d exp re ssin g the
earnest opinion that the time has come for establishing a de*
partment of public health.
I quote here from an article in the Survey, o f New York—
formerly the Charities and Commons— published by the Sage
Foundation, March 19, 1910, page 938:
So when Senator O w e n introduces into the Senate o f the United
State’s the first really adequate bill to meet the problem o f the conser­
vation o f our wasted national health— a bill for the establishm ent o f a
national department o f health under a secretary who shall be clothed
with the prestige and the authority o f membership in the President’ s
Cabinet— when such a bill is presented to Congress, the old cry goes up
from every quarter— the time is not ripe. But there are those who re­
fuse to believe this, w ho know the time is overripe, some who even put
it with Marceilus, that “ som ething is rotten with the S tate.”
The principle o f the Owen bill is right.
So says the American
M edical Association, w ith its thousands o f p h y sician s; so says the
Committee o f One hundred, with its thousands o f men «n d women
awake to the shortcom ings o f the m ultiplicity o f governm ent bureaus,

2

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD.

each doing a little, some doing more, some doing less, and not all to­
gether doing a tithe of what needs to be done, and what coordina­
tion, consolidation, and unification in one great department could do.
“ The-time-is-not-ripe ” Congressmen will be content to repeat on and on
until each awakes to the fact that his constituents believe that the
time is ripe. Personal interviews, letters, telegrams, resolutions, peti­
tions, newspaper articles, should go, and go at once, to the Senators and
Representatives of each man and woman who refuses longer to be put
off in favor of protected trees, plants, and p ig s ; who believes in a pro­
tecting department of health as much as in a protecting Department of
Agriculture.
The authorities are agreed that with our present knowledge the death
rate of the people of this country may be cut in two. It is time the
thing were done.
The time is ripe for radicals, reformers, whatever
their other creeds, philanthropists, charity workers, rich or poor,
founded or without funds, to get together and to state squarely and
openly, without equivocation, what is needed and what is demanded.
Until then, always we shall hear, “ The time is not ripe.”

Hon. R. A. Woodward, president of the Carnegie Institution,
of Washington, says in a letter of February 23, 1910:
I have examined this bill with care and am disposed to approve its
general features heartily.

The bill of which I speak, Senate bill 6049, simply provides
a secretary of public health, and is a skeleton bill, bringing
together under the department of public health all the health
and sanitary agencies of the United States.
Mr. GALLINGER. Mr. President-----The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Oklahoma
yield to the Senator from New Hampshire?
Mr. OWEN. I do.
Mr. GALLINGER. Will the Senator tell me why the army
and navy are excluded from the bill? The Senator a moment
ago complained about the mortality at Chickamauga. That
was under the War Department.
Mr. OWEN. I will answer briefly as to that point, Mr.
President, that it is because o f their possible political opposi­
tion that the bill excluded them.
Mr. GALLINGER. I do not see what political activities
have to do with the question of human life and health.
Mr. OWEN. It has this to do with it: That it would be
probably impossible to pass a bill with the hostile opposition of
these who are connected with the medical service o f the army
and the navy; and, moreover, the departments of health in the
War and Navy departments, being particularly attendant upon
the military arm of the Government, may be excluded from a
department of public health, although I do not think they ought
to be. I think that the Japanese have set an example to the
Americans that they might well follow, where their medical
men go ahead of their military forces and take pains to see
that the soldiers of Japan have clean water and clean fo o d ; and
they do not die like flies from typhoid fever.
Mr. GALLINGER. Now, Mr. President, if the Senator will
permit me, I am not going to quarrel with him on that point-----Mr. OWEN. I am sure the Senator will not quarrel with me
on any point.
Mr. GALLINGER. I quite agree with the Senator. But my
attention was particularly attracted to the Senator’s observa­
tion that we sacrificed—I have forgotten how many thousand—
soldiers at Chickamauga.
Mr. OWEN. In that camp alone were 11,837 cases of pre­
ventable typhoid fever, and 850 young men died there, who
ought not to have died—not a single one of them, and typhoid
fever scattered broadcast by those going home, convalescent or
sick.
Mr. GALLINGER. Because of improper medical supervision?
Mr. OWEN. No, sir; because of improper conduct by the
officers of the line who were responsible for that camp.
Mr. GALLINGER. But the Senator must know that the med­
ical officers are responsible for the condition of the hospitals
and the food and drink, and so forth.
Mr. OWEN. They are emphatically not, although they ought
to be, because, Mr. President-----Mr. GALLINGER. Well-----Mr. OWEN. Just a moment. Because, under oi.r intelligent
method of administration, a lieutenant in command can turn
down a man learned in the sanitary sciences and make his
orders of no effect.
Mr. GALLINGER. I want to get to that particular point, and
I want the Senator to address himself to that. It does not
make any difference whether they are officers of the line or
medical officers, if that condition exists under the War Depart­
ment, why should not that department be placed', under the
supervision of the department which the Senator proposes to
organize?
Mr. OWEN. Does the Senator favor that?
Mr. GALLINGER. Do I favor what?
Mr. OWEN. Putting them under this department.




# 5546— 8883

Mr. GALLINGER. I am not at all sure that I favor the bill
at all, but I was anxious to find out-----Mr. OWEN. I was hoping that I had found an auxiliary In
the Senator.
Mr. GALLINGER. The Senator will find that out later.
This is what I am anxious to find out. The Senator wants
to save our soldiers and complains that the medical officers and
the line officers are neglecting them in matters of health, and
yet in organizing this great department of health he is going
to exclude them. I can not see the philosophy of the Senator’s
position.
Mr. OWEN. I have explained the philosophy of it to the
Senator. I will say that when a department of public health
is once established and it sets a standard of sanitary science
and of public health, whether the department of medicine and
surgery in the military arm of the Government be put in the
department of public health or not, this department will exer­
cise a cogent influence over the practice of all departments
affecting the public health, including the department having in
charge the health of our soldiers and our sailors.
Now, Mr. President, I want to call attention to some few of
the distinguished men who have reported their approval of a
department of public health, including particularly Prof. Irving
Fisher, the professor of political economy of Yale University,
and president of the committee of one hundred.
Col. W. C. Gorgas, United States Army, chief sanitary officer
of Panama, says in letter of March 4, 1910:
I am very much in favor of some bill of this kind, which will bring
all medical services of the Government, with the exception of the army
any navy, under one head, elevated to the position of a department,
with a member of the Cabinet at its head.

Hiram J. Messenger, actuary of the Travelers’ Insurance
Company, of Hartford, Conn., says:
I sincerely hope this bill will become a law.

The principle of this bill has the cordial approval and sup­
port of the officers o f the American Medical Association, with a
direct and associated membership of 80,000 physicians, sur­
geons, and sanitary experts.
Irving Fisher, president of the committee of one hundred of
the American Association for the Advancement of Science on
National Health, approves the principle of Senate bill 6049 of
a department of public health with a Cabinet officer at the head
of it.
Hon. Joseph Y. Porter, state health officer of Florida, the
oldest health officer, perhaps, in the United States by actual
service, says:
Assuming that you wish an expression of opinion on the features of
the bill, I shall take the privilege of saying that I fear, even should the
bill meet with success m passing both houses of the Congress, the
President would veto the measure because he has expressed himself—
so reported in the press— as opposed to creating any new departments.
I am certainly in favor of a department of public health and approve
of your bill as presented to Congress, but if the President is correctly
quoted I can see no likelihood of such an enactment being accepted by
him, and becoming a law.

Mr. President, again I wish to emphasize my objection to the
President being erroneously quoted with regard to a depart­
ment, and reaffirm the fact that he has not expressed himself
against a department of public health, although some one is
continually suggesting that he is opposed.
It has been also suggested that Congress was opposed to it,
when Congress has expressed no opinion upon the subject, and
.possibly hardly a single Member has committed himself with
finality against the suggestion of a department, and certainly
the matter should be thoroughly discussed previously to an
adverse final commitment by any very careful and just-minded
legislator.
The general secretary of the National Child Labor Commit­
tee, Owen R. Lovejoy, esq., in letter of March 18, 1910, expresses
his strong approval of a department of public health.
The secretary of the state board of health of Kansas, S. J.
Crumbine, M. D., says:
I believe I voice the sentiment of the entire membership of the Kan­
sas state board of health and the medical profession of this State when
I say that we most heartily indorse the objects of this bill, and trust
that it may be enacted into a law by the present Congress.

The executive secretary of the National Association for the
Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis, Dr. Livingston Farrand,
March 11, 1910, says:
I am in favor of a national department of health.

Thomas Darlington, of New York City, says:
I trust that such a department of public health will be established.
(February 26, 1910.)

CONGRESSIONAL1 RECORD.
John H. Capstick, president of the state board of health, New
Jersey, says:
I wish to say to you that I believe the bill is a good bill and should
become a law.

George EL Simmons, editor of the Journal of the American
Medical Association, says, March 9, 1910:
W ill say that you may depend on us for hearty support.

William Jay Schieffelin, of New York City, says (February
18, 1910) :
It seems to me an extremely Important measure and one which, If
adopted, would result in untold benefit to the people of the country.

Russell Chittenden, of the Sheffield Scientific School, says
(February 16, 1910) :
I think that such a bureau, whether made a separate department or
not, will be of the greatest service for the improvement of the health
of the community.
I trust that the bill in question w ill meet with
general approval and be eventually passed.

J. N. Hurty, state health commissioner of the state board of
health, Indianapolis, Ind., says:
I am heartily In favor of creating a department of public health and
making its secretary a member of the Cabinet.

William F. Slocum, president, Colorado College, Colorado,
says (February 21, 1910) :
,

I am glad to send you word of my strong approval of the bill.

Prince A. Morrow, M. D., o f the American Society o f Sanitary
and Moral Prophylaxis, New York, says (March 10, 1910):

3

conservation of human life without neglecting plant life or
animal life.
Mr. President, no man can read the Report on National Vital­
ity—Its Wastes and Conservation, of the Committee of One
Hundred without being impressed with certain great facts:
1. The thoroughness and scientific care with which it made
this report.
2. The stupendous annual loss of life which could be easily
prevented; the immense economic commercial loss and human
misery and sorrow due to preventable illness, inefficiency, de­
generation, and death.
3. The wisdom o f the means proposed by the Committee cf
One Hundred for the prevention of this annual loss and for the
conservation of the national life and health.
These proposals are as follow s:
1. Concentration of all federal health agencies into one department.
2. Correlation and coordination of the work relating to human health
and sanitation.
3. Investigation and regulation of health and sanitary matters in
addition to those now provided by existing laws.
4. Cooperative experimental work with state health departments in
some such relation as now exist between the national and state agri­
cultural experimental stations.
5. The training and employment of experts in sanitary science, who
can both increase and diffuse knowledge bearing on the preservation
and Improvement of the health of the people.
,
6. The diffusion of this knowledge not only among the several de­
partments of the Federal Government and state health officials, but
also among the people in the same manner as farmers’ bulletins are
now being issued.
SU PPO RT OP T H E P LA N PROPOSED.

Mr. President, there is not in the world a more distinguished
body o f scientists and philanthropists than the Committee of
One Hundred, appointed by the American Association for the
i Archbishop Ireland, SL Paul, March 10, 1910, says:
Advancement of Science.
You are on the right track, although perhaps it may take some time
Irving Fisher, professor of political economy of Yale Uni­
before you are able to bring Congress to adopt your measure.
versity, is its president. The vice-presidents are: Rev. Lyman
Charles W. Eliot, ex-president Harvard University, March 5, Abbott, editor Outlook, New York City; Miss Jane Addams,
1910, says:
of Hull House, Chicago; Felix Adler, of New York City;
The practical question at this moment seems to be, W hat can be done James Burrill Angell, diplomat, New York City; Hon. Joseph
to promote the efficiency of the various national agencies which already H. Choate, ex-ambassador to England, N ew York City; Charles
have public-health functions?
These agencies are now scattered William Eliot, president of Harvard University, Cambridge,
through several departments of the Government, and in all the depart­
Ireland, St. Paul, Minn.;
ments hold subordinate positions. To promoto their efficiency and In­ Mass.; Right Rev. Archbishop
crease their Influence they need to be united into one bureau or de­ Hon. Ben B. Lindsay, Denver, Golo.; John Mitchell, New York
partment under a single head.
City; Dr. William II. Welch, professor pathology, Johns Hop­
Edward T. Devine, editor of the Survey, formerly of the kins University, Baltimore, Md.; Secretary Edward T. Devine
of the Survey; and the list of 100 contains other names as
Charities and the Commons, March 4, 1910, says:
notable, including Miss Mabel T. Boardman, president of the
I have much sympathy with your view that the subject o f public
health is one eminently worthy of the entire attention and consideration Red Cross; Andrew Carnegie; Thomas A. Edison; Mrs. John
B. Henderson, of Washington; Prof. David Starr Jordan,
of a federal department.
president Stanford University; Dr. Charles A. L. Reed, chair­
Hon. R. S. Woodward, of the Carnegie Institution, in letter man of the legislative committee of the American Medical
of March 5, 1910, says:
Association, of Cincinnati, Ohio; Robert S. Woodward, presi­
I think you are quite right in standing for such a department rather dent Carnegie Institution, Washington, D. C.; and a host of
than for a bureau o f an existing department.
others no less distinguished for learning, patriotism, and
I inclose as exhibit No. 10 a letter from Dr. Z. T. Sowers, philanthropy.
IN C R E A SIN G L EN G TH OF L IF E .
o f March 7, 1910, to Hon. J a m e s R. M a n n , showing the necessity
and importance for a concentration of these health agencies,
The modern duration of life is widely variant, according to
suggesting, however, the Department of Commerce and Labor.
the organized protection of the health of the people by govern­
David S. Jordan, of Leland Stanford Junior University, says, ment.
February 24, 1910:
In India the average length of life is twenty-three years, due,
I decidedly approve of your bill for the establishment of a depart­ not to climatic conditions, but to ignorance, prejudices, and
ment of public health.
religious superstitions. They will not kill a snake in India,
And Surgeon-General Wyman told me this very morning that and thousands of inhabitants die annually from the poison of
he was not opposed to a department of public health, and in his snake bites. In America we die in like manner from typhoid
and tuberculosis, because we neglect to suppress the causes of
letter to the President of June 21, 1909 (p. 47), he said:
these diseases.
I have never opposed a department of health, with a secretary In the
The length of life in India is not increasing because of their
Cabinet, for I have realized that developments might in time make such
lack of progress; but in Geneva, Switzerland, where the country
a department advisable.
is supposed to be very healthy, the length of life in the sixteenth
ad so, Mr. President, from many societies of public health, century was only 21.2; in the seventeenth century, 25.7; in the
of sanitation, of charities, as well as from private individuals eighteenth century, 33.6; from 1801 to 1883, 39.7; and it is
o f great distinction, come these indorsements of the principle of steadily improving.
this bill.
T H E PROLONGATION OF L IF E .
Is it asking too much that a question of such national magni­
Scientific hygiene and increased knowledge of the laws relat­
tude and universal approval have consideration?
Mr. President, the Agricultural Bureau was of no great com­ ing to health have had a very striking effect upon the prolonga­
parative value until it became a department, and now its enor­ tion of human life throughout the world.
mous value is not questioned by any man. It has been worth
A t present in Massachusetts life is lengthening a t the rate of four­
thousands of millions of dollars, and its value is annually teen years per century; in Europe about seventeen y e a rs; in Prussia,
the land of medical discovery and its application, twenty-seven yea rs;
increasing.
India, where medical progress Is practically unknown, the life span
It has wisely taught us how to protect plant life, tree life, In
Is short, twenty-three, and remains stationary (page 1 1 ).
animal life, and is a noble, dignified department.
It is demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt by the report of
Is plant life, tree life, animal life confessedly worthy a great
the committee of one hundred that the average human life in
department and human life unworthy of a department?
I recently sent 25,000 bulletins to farmers in Oklahoma on the United States may be, within a generation, prolonged over
how to raise swine. I had no bulletins to send out how to pro­ fourteen years. I submit the table as to the method of this cal­
tect the health of children. I believe in giving first place to the culation.
I
S554&—8S83
If there is any hope of your bill passing, I am heartily in favor of it.




CONGRESSIONAL RECORD

4

Report on national vitality— Possible prolongation of life.
(1)

Cause of death.

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10 .
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
84.
35.
89.
87.
38.
39.
40.

Premature birth...............................................
Congenital malformation of heart (cyanosis)
Congenital malformations other than of heart
Congenital debility........................
Hydrocephalus........................
Venereal diseases.............
Diarrhea and enteritis..........
Measles____ _____
Aute bronchitis........... ............
Broneho-pneumonia____________________________________________
W hooping cough_____ ____________________________________ _
___
___
C rou p ........................... ..................... ............................................................... .
Meningitis-------------------- ------------------------------------------------- —
_____ ____
Diseases of larynx other than laryngitis............. - ..........................................
Laryngitis----------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------Diphtheria________________ ______ ______ - ........ —----------------------------------------Scarlet fever............................................................................................................... .
Diseases of lymphatics.............................................................................................
Tonsilitis---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Tetanus........................................................................................................................
Tuberculosis other than lungs.................................................................
Abscess............................................................................................................
Appendicitis_________________________ ___ _______________ ____________
Typhoid fever.............................................................................._ .................
Puerperal convulsions----------------------------- --------------------------------------------- ..
Puerperal septicaemia................................... ................................................ .........
Other causes incident to childbirth_______________________________________
Diseases of tubes..................................................................................... .................
Peritonitis
_ _
Smallpox................................................................. .......... ........................................
Tuberculosis of lungs................................................................................................
Violence............... .......... — ____ ___ ___ — ----------- ----------- -------Malarial fever............................................................................................. .............
Septicaemia.............................................................................................
Epilepsy..............................................................................................
General, ill defined, and unknown causes (including “ heart failure,”
“ dropsy,” and “ convulsions ” ) ........................................................................
Erysipelas____________________________________________________
Pneumonia (lobar and unqualified)— ----- ------------------------------------------Acute nephritis............................... ................... ................- ............... ......................
Pleurisy____________________________________________- ______ ..__

42.
43.
44.
45.

Obstruction of intestines.................... . ............................................... ...................
Alcoholism___________ _______ _______________________________
Hemorrhage of lungs...............................................................................................
Diseases of thyroid body.................... ................. .............. ...... ......................

47. Uterine tumor...................................... ...................................................................
48. Rheumatism............................................................... T...............................................
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.

Anemia, leukemia........................................................ ............................................
Chronic poisonings....................................................................................................
Congestion of lungs..................................... .............................. ................... ......
Ulcer of stomach............. .........................................................................................
Carbuncle.................................................... - ..........................................................
Pericarditis................................................................................................... ........... .

57.
58.
59.
60.
61.
62.
63.
64.
65.

Dysentery....................................................................................................................
Gastritis.................................... .......................... .............................. ........ .................
Cholera nostras............................................. ..........................................................
Cirrhosis of liver........................................................................................................
General paralysis of insana....................................................................................
Hydatid tumors of liver...................................................................... ..................
Endocarditis....................................................... ......................................................
Locomotor ataxia........................................................- ..........................................
Diseases of veins.................... .................................. ........................... ........ ........ .

67. Diabetes.............. ............................................................................... ........................
68. Biliary calculi.............................. ......... ................... ................... ...........................
69. Hernia.....................................................................................- ....................................
72. Bright’s disease......... ........................................................................................ .......

76. Calculi of urinary tract...........................................................................................
78.
79.
80.
81.
82.

Heart disease............................................................................................................
Influenza............................................................................................. .................. .
Asthma and emphysema................................................................ .........................
Angina pectoris......... ............................................................... ...............................
Apoplexy.................................................................................... ...............................

84. Chronic bronchitis.................. ................ ...............................................................

88. Diseases of bladder_______________________________________________________




• Some inaccuracies in this column.

(2)

(3)

(*)•

A.

B.

O.

Median age Expecta­
tion of
of deaths
life at
from
median
causes
named.
age.

Tears.

1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
3
3
3
3
5
8
8
23
24
24
26
28
28
31
31
31
32
33
34
34
34
35

Tears.
50
50
60
50
50
50
50
60
50
50
50
54
54
64
64
54
64
54
52
62
40
39
39
38
* 37
» 37
» 35
* 35
34
34
33
32
32
32
32

35
37
37
39
42
42
43
44
45
46
46
46
47
48
48
48
49
49
49
52
52
62
53
53
64
65
55
66
56
67
58
68
58
59

31
30
so
29
27
27
26
25
25
24
* 25
*25
23
23
23
23
22
22
22
20
* 21
20
19
19
19
18
19
17
17
17
*17
15
16
16

59
69
60
60
61
61
63
63
64
64
65
67
70
71
71
71
73
74

16
16
15
15
14
14
13
13
13
13
12
11
10
9
9
9
9
8

(5)

(7)

(6)

D.
E =B E .
E=C D .
Ratio of preventability
Tears added
(postponabil- Ratio of “ pre­
to average
Deaths due
ity), i. e., ratio
lifetime if
ventable ”
to cause
of
“
preventa­
deaths
were
deaths
from
named as
ble” deaths
cause named
prevented in
percentage
from
cause
to
all
deaths
the
ratio
of
of ail deaths.
named to all from all causes. preventability
deaths from
of column 5.
cause named.
Per cent.
2
.55
.3

1

Per cent.

70
60
40
SO
50
40
75
70
40
40
70
60
20
80
75
60
50
85
SO
85
50
65
55
75
75
35
80
40
o

9.2
.3
7

.08
5.0
.26
.5
1.7
.03
.1
8.1
.7
.23
.4
4.4
.2
.8
1
.2
.83
.2

Tears.

.92

.1
.3
7.74
.8
1.1
2.4
.9
.3
1.6
.07
.06
1.4
.5
.01
.05
.19
.17
.08
.7
2
.2
.4
.36
.1
.5
.01
9.9
7.5
.2
.3
.29

.6
.27
.02
.6
.4
.1
.02
.07
.1
.5
.03
.4
.05
.4
.2
.03
.1
.6
.5
.65
.09
.9
.3
.002
.8
.17
.04
.4
.8
.17
.27

Per cent.
0.8

o
o

• •

30
60
45
SO
55
o
25
85
80
10
0
60
10
0
50
70
60
50
50
10
0
80
50
60
60
75
75
25
35
40
0
10
40
70
0
40
0
0
0
10
0
25
50
30
25
35
0
so
60
0
10
45

.21
4.64
.32
.33
1.2
.36
.22
1.12
.03
.02
.98
.25
.002
.02
.15
.13
.05
.35
1.7
.06
.34
.18
.06
,2S
.01
7.42 •
2.7
.16
.12

.46
.11
2.32
.16
.17
.6
.18
.12
.6
.02
.01
.53
.14
.001
.01
.08
.02
.14
.05
.02
.13
.03
.02
.1
.003
2.45
.86
.05
.04
.85
.05
.94
.05
.04

2.75
.18
3.15
.18
.15
.15
.34
.08
.002

.04
.09
.02
.0005

.06
,05

.02
.01

.2
.03
.2
.1
.015
.01

.05
.007
.04
.02
.003
.002

.4
.32
.05
.54
.22
.002
.2
.06
.02

.08
.06
.01
.1
.04
.0002
.03
.01
.003

.08
.07
.19

.01
.01
■03

2.24

.36

.003

,0004

2.02
.35
.07
.1
1.54

.26
.05
.000
.01
.17

.24
.5

.02
.04

.08
.09

.007
.007

* “ Expectation ” for females.

35546— 88S3

I

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD

5

Report on national vitality— Possible prolongation of life— Continued.

Cause of death.

69. Gangrene........................ .......................................................................... ..................

(4)«

(2)

(8)

JL

B.

Median age
of deaths
from
causes
named.

Expecta­
tion of
life at
median
age.

(1)

Tears.
74
83

All n?\r|<5P<j

38

(6)

(6)

( 7)

D.
E=C D .
F =B E .
Ratio of pre­
Tears added
vent ability
to average
(postponabil- Ratio of “ pre­
Deaths due ity), i. e., ratio
ventable ”
lifetime if
to cause
deaths were
of “ preventa­ deaths from
named as
prevented
in
cause
named
ble” deaths
percentage
the ratio of
to all deaths
from cause
of all deaths.
preventahility
from
all
cause3.
named to all
of column 6.
deaths from
cause named.
O.

Tears.
8
5

Per cent.
0.25
2

Per cent.
GO
0

100

Per cent.
0.15

Tears.
0.01

6 42.3

14.06

47
67
49
28

8.8
2.8
21.2
9.5

4.4
1.51
6.82
1.33

42.3

42.3

14.06

42.3

R f iS U M f i.

Diseases of Infancv (havin? median age 11
__
Diseases of childhood (having median age 2 to 8)-

-

...........
____ __

____

.

18.5
4.2
43
84.3
100

I

° Some Inaccuracies In this column.
6 Although this Is the ratio of general preventahility of deaths under existing conditions, the death rate, 1. e., deaths In relation to popula­
tion, will not in the end be affected in this ratio but by only about 25 per cent. The reason for this paradox is that deaths prevented lead to a
larger population.

This detailed estimate of the prolongation of human life four­
teen years is based upon a vast amount of data and is a con­
clusion justified by the knowledge of some of the most learned
men in the world.
I remind you again of what I pointed out a year ago to the
Senate, that in New Zealand the deaths per thousand per an­
num is 9 and a fraction and in the Australasian states 10 and
a fraction, while in the United States it is 16.5, a loss of 7 to
the thousand in the United States in excess of the New Zealand
rate—that is, in 90,000,000 people it would exceed 600,000 deaths
that could be saved annually in our Republic.
YELLO W

FEV ER .

Mr. President, before the American intervention in Cuba
the death rate from yellow fever alone in Habana to the hun­
dred thousand population in 1870 was 300; in 1880, 324; in
1896, 639; in 1897, 428; and after the American occupation it
fell: 1900, 124; in 1901, 6; in 1902, zero; in 1903, zero; in
1904, zero.
What a glorious record! What a splendid tribute to the
learning, industry, and self-sacrifice of the devoted medical
men who accomplished this result, most of whom are now
dead. James Carrol and Lazier died from experimental yellow
fever, sacrificing their own lives deliberately in the interest of
their fellow-man. All honor to their names and to the names
of Walter Reed and the others, who, brave, gallant soldiers of
peace, exposed their lives for the benefit of their fellows.
Monuments of stone and “of bronze should be erected to these
patriots of peace, more noble and self-sacrificing in their work
than patriots of war. What does the commerce o f the world owe
to these men who vanquished yellow fever? There could have
been no Panama Canal except for this development of science.
P EO PLE

U N IN F O R M E D

EX P O SE

TH E M SE LV E S.

With the record in Habana of the control of yellow fever there
are thousands of unlearned people who will ignorantly ridicule
the means of the mosquito as an agency for transmitting this
disease; that will deny the transmission of malaria by the mos­
quito.
And there are thousands who will Ignorantly deny that bu­
bonic plague is transmitted by the flea from the rat and the
squirrel to the human being. The power of the Government
alone acting through its strongest arm is necessary for the pre­
vention of a wholesale introduction into the United States of
bubonic plague.
The bubonic plague is now among the ground squirrels.and
rats on the Pacific coast at various scattered points over a
thousand miles apart, due to the thoughtless ignorance, interest,
and prejudice of the commercial interests of San Francisco that
suppressed the faithful and intelligent work attempted to be dis­
charged by the officers of the Marine-Hospital Service, which I
may more fully set up hereafter.
The bill which I have introduced is in accordance with the
earnest repeated desires of the American Medical Association,
probably the largest and most honorable association of physi-




85546— 8883

cians and surgeons in the whole world as far as the principle of
the bill is concerned. I have an earnest letter from Dr. Charles
A. L. Reed, chairman of the legislative committee of the Ameri­
can Medical Association, which I herewith insert:
Mr. DIXON. Mr. President-----The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Oklahoma
yield to the Senator from Montana?
Mr. OWEN. I do.
Mr. DIXON. I am very much interested in what the Sena-^
tor from Oklahoma is now saying. Is it not a fact that the
experience of American life insurance companies shows that
the death rate during the past thirty years has not been over
two-thirds of the estimated death rate according to the Ameri­
can mortality tables?
Mr. OWEN. It has been very much improved. It has di­
minished from 25 deaths to the thousand down to 16.5 to the
thousand. But a year ago I called the attention of the Senate
to the fact that the death rate in New Zealand, where human
life is properly cared for, is nine and a fraction to the thou­
sand ; and with all the improvements we have made—and they
have been considerable—it is 16.5 to the thousand with the
American people, 7 to the thousand in excess of New Zealand,
and we have as good a climate as they. Seven to the thousand
for 90,000,000 people means a preventable death loss o f 630,000
people per annum. It is impossible to exaggerate the impor­
tance of this appalling national loss.
Mr. GALLINGER. Mr. President-----The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Oklahoma
yield to the Senator from New Hampshire?
Mr. OWEN. I do.
Mr. GALLINGER. Can the Senator state to the Senate what
great improvements over the American system have been
adopted in New Zealand, so far as taking care of the life and
health of the people is concerned?
Mr. OWEN. I will-----Mr. GALLINGER. Then one other point. The Senator will
not lose sight of the fact that in a country like ours, which is
made up of very large cities to a considerable extent, with the
attendant poverty that is in those cities, and the impossibility
of caring for the health of infants particularly, the death rate
naturally would be larger than in a country like New Zealand,
that is made up o f smaller communities. The Senator, of
course, will not dispute that as one fact in connection with the
difference between the mortality.
But particularly I should like to know, because I have no
knowledge on the point, what New Zealand has done in the
matter o f health legislation or health protection that is in ad­
vance of what we have been trying to do in the United States?
Mr. OWEN. I will answer the question. The policy of New
Zealand which preserves human life rests primarily upon the
broad doctrine of government prevalent and in force in that
country, protecting the weaker elements of society from oppres­
sion by commercial ambition. The very poor are protected
from injury at the hands of thoughtless commercialism.

CONGRESSIONAL' RECORD

6

Another thing, under that policy they teach their people what
constitutes a healthy dwelling. They provide a means by which
a man belonging to the weaker elements of society can have
furnished to him at a low rate of interest, on long time, the
means to put up a concrete house. Call it socialism? Yes;
what of it? You ask me to answer the question. I answer it.
They give the housing, which gives good health. In the tables
which I shall presently show, one house on Cherry street, in New
York, has 23 cases of tuberculosis; the house adjacent to it
has 18 cases of tuberculosis; and the next house to it has 13
cases of tuberculosis. Of course, they die. Why should they
not die? And who cares? I care. They are my kin. I care.
I think every man who stops long enough in the mad rush of
American life to understand it will care and will be willing to
try to protect these poor brothers of ours. I shall show these
tables in a few moments, and I shall show how great an im­
provement the New York City board o f health has made in these
tuberculosis-breeding houses.
Mr. GALLINGER. Mr. President-----The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Oklahoma
yield to the Senator from New Hampshire?
Mr. OWEN. I do.
Mr. GALLINGER. I do not want the Senator to think be­
cause I interrupt him that I am combating his very interesting
argument. I have no such purpose. But I was attracted by
the Senator’s statement concerning the great improvement in
health matters that was made in Habana. I have knowledge
of that. That, however, was made under the laws of the United
States and under our present health department or bureau. It
was a marvelous regeneration of that great city. I do not
think that can be used as an argument for turning over our
present Health Bureau to a larger health department, to be cre­
ated because that great improvement was made by the health
officers of the United States, and they have exterminated yellow
fever from the southern cities by the same methods.
Mr. OWEN. Mr. President, the individuals to whom this meri­
torious service is due deserve the credit, and not the organism to
which they belong. The regeneration of Habana was not due
to the Marine-Hospital Service, but to Gen. Leonard Wood, a
trained physician of the Medical Department of the United
States Army, under whom Walter Reed, James Carroll, and
Lazear, also of the Medical Department of the United States
Army, carried on this work. Doctor White, of the Marine-Hos­
pital Service, followed this work later with excellent results at
New Orleans, but I will presently show the inefficiency of that
organization, not as to its personnel, but because it is a bad
system of government.
Mr. DU PONT. Mr. President-----The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Oklahoma
yield to the Senator from Delaware?
Mr. OWEN. I yield to the Senator from Delaware.
Mr. DU PONT. Mr. President, I observe that the bill on
which the Senator from Oklahoma is speaking contemplates
the creation of a bureau o f veterinary science. I ask the Sen­
ator if it is the purpose of this proposed legislation to take
away the veterinary corps from the Department of Agriculture
and place it under this proposed new department?
Mr. OWEN. Mr. President, I will say to the Senator from
Delaware that I have no particular pride in any part o f this
bill or in the bill itself. All that I want to see is the coopera­
tion and coordination of agencies affecting human health in one
dignified, efficient department. The bill can be easily amended
to meet any objection made by the Senator; and I see that there
is force in what he says.
Mr. DU PONT. It seems to me that the veterinary service
is properly under the Department of Agriculture.
Mr. OWEN. Now, Mr. President, I submit a letter from
the chairman of the legislative committee of the American
Medical Association. I think he speaks for the American
Medical Association substantially, and there are 80,000 men
who are members, as I understand, or connected with this asso­
ciation, which extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It is
the greatest medical association in the world. He says:
C i n c i n n a t i , March, 10, 1910.
Hon. R o b e r t L . O w e n ,
United States Senate, Washington, D. C.
D e a r S ir : In compliance with your request for suggestion to be taken
up in connection with the hearing on the bill recently introduced by you
to create a department with a secretary of health, I beg to reply in my
capacity as chairman of the legislative committee of the American Medi­
cal Association. In that capacity I have the honor at the same time
to request, first, that you avail yourself of an early opportunity, and
in your own way, to lay before the Senate the facts which I shall pre­
sent ; and, second, that you arrange at an early date for a hearing on
your bill, the vital principle of which is so distinctly in consonance with

45546— S883




the interests of the people, as represented by and through the medical
profession.
This is shown by the fact that the American Medical Association,
through its legislative conference, attended by delegates from 36 States
and from the army, navy, and the Public Health and Marine-Hospital
Service, held at Chicago, March 2, 1910, in harmony with the repeated
action of the association for nineteen years, adopted the report of its
Federal and State Regulation of Public Health suggesting
a H ll be passed that will give recognition to the health interests
of the country in the title of ‘ a department ’ and that within that
department there be organized an efficient bureau of health to consist
of all present public national health agencies.”
The physicians of the country, who, as professional students of the
question and as the natural advisers of the people on health questions
and who, consequently, have first knowledge of the subject have long
maintained their present attitude for the following specific reasons:
First. The time has arrived when, under the law of precedent the
health interests of the country ought to pass from their present bureau
stage of development to that of a department. This course of evolu­
tion was exemplified, first, I believe, in the development of the Depart­
ment of the Interior, then that of Agriculture, and, finally, that of
Commerce and Labor. In each of these instances the antecedent bu­
reaus had existed for periods varying from a few years to a decade
or two. The health interests of the country, more fundamental than
all, have been left in the form of, successively, a “ service,” then of a
“ bureau,” for more than a century.
Second. The creation of a department of health Is furthermore de­
manded ; first, because sanitary science has demonstrated its ability to
conserve the efficiency and prolong the life of the people; and, second,
because nothing less than the establishment of a department can have
that maximum of moral force and educational influence, that maximum
of prestige and effectiveness combined with business-like economy of
administration that will enable it to deal with the disgraceful, not to
say monstrous, conditions now prevailing in this country.
Third. That a department of health, with the fullness of power and
Influence that can inhere only in a department and nothing less than
a department, is demanded by the conditions to which I have alluded
is conclusively established by the fact that, first, about 600,000 people
die in this country every year from preventable causes ; second, that
something more than 3,000,000 more are made ill and idle for variable
periods every year from the same causes; and, third, that the annual
economic loss from this source alone amounts to more than a billion
and a half dollars every year.
Fourth. That nothing less than a department of health, acting in
cooperation with the States and in full recognition of their rights
and powers, is practicable for the assembling and coordinating of the
existing health agencies of the Government and for their effective,
economic, and business-like administration.
Fifth. That nothing less than the creation of a department of
health can comprise a fulfillment of the pledge to the people contained
in the platform of every political party that appealed to the popular
suffrage in the last national campaign.
In view of the foregoing facts and considerations I have the honor
to request that at the hearing on your bill care be taken to give special
consideration to the suggestions which I shall enumerate.
Many, if not all of them, have been covered in general terms and
some of them in specific terms, in your bill. It has seemed, however,
that by presenting them somewhat in detail in the form of sections
to a possible bill, I could facilitate their consideration in consecutive
order as follows :
Section 1 ought to provide,' as your bill does provide, for the es­
tablishment of a department of health under the supervision of the
secretary of health, who shall be appointed by the President by and
with the consent of the Senate, at a salary of $12,000 per annum and
who shall be a member of the Cabinet of the President and who shall
discharge the duties prescribed in the act.
Section 2 might with propriety provide for the constituent bureaus
of the Department of Health as follows :
( a) The Bureau of Hygiene and Preventive Medicine, to which
(a) shall be transferred the Laboratory of Hygiene, now located in the
Bureau of Public Health and Marine-Hospital Service in the Department
of the Treasury, together with all duties, functions, powers, rights, and
prerogatives now vested by law in such Laboratory of H ygiene; and it
shall be the further duty of the Bureau of Hygiene and Preventive Medi­
cine (b) to cooperate with the respective States, Territories, and de­
pendencies in accumulating statistics and other information as to causes
and prevalence of disease; (c) to conduct continuous investigation into
all sources of danger to human health and life ; (d) to formulate rules
and regulations for carrying out these provisions, and (e) to publish
the records and results of its labors, all under the direction and by the
approval of the Secretary of Health.
(b) The Bureau of Foods and Drugs, to which (a) shall be trans­
ferred all duties, functions, powers, rights, and prerogatives now devolv­
ing by the Food and Drugs Act of 1907 on the Bureau of Chemistry of
the Department of Agriculture; and the Bureau of Foods and Drugs
shall also (b) supervise the cleanliness and other hygienic and sanitary
features of the buildings and products of manufactories, cold-storage
plants, and other establishments engaged in the commercial preparation
or in the storage of any food product or products whatsoever destined
for interstate commerce; (c) establish standards or purity of fo o d s;
(d) conduct investigations to determine the best method of preparing
foods with reference to the full development of their nutritive va lu e;
(e) determine the food value of articles not now generally recognized as
fo o d s; ( f ) establish standards of purity for d rugs; (g) make a syste­
matic and exhaustive study of the medicinal flora of the United States
and its Territories and dependencies ; (h) investigate and, where prac­
ticable, promote the naturalization and commercial cultivation within
the United States, its Territories and dependencies, of medicinal flora
indigenous to other countries; (I) publish reports of its investigations,
activities, and conclusions; and (j) formulate and enforce necessary
rules and regulations all under the direction of the Secretary of Health.
(c) The bureau of marine hospitals, to which shall be transferred the
Marine-Hospital Service of the Bureau of Public Health and MarineHospital Service of the Department of the Treasury, together with its
present personnel and all duties, functions, powers, rights, and preroga­
tives now vested by law in such Marine-Hospital Service, all to be
administered under the direction of the secretary of health.
( d ) The bureau of quarantine, to which shall be transferred the
Quarantine Service now located in the Bureau of Public Health and
Marine-Hospital Service of the Department of the Treasury, together
with its present personnel and all duties, functions, powers, rights, and

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD
prerogatives now vested by law under such Quarantine Service, all to
bs administered under the direction of the secretary of health.
(e) The bureau of institutions and reservations, to which shall
be transferred all hospitals, asylums, “ homes,” and infirmaries located
in any other department of the Government except the Department of
W ar and the Department of the Navy. And there shall likewise be
transferred to this bureau the Hot Springs Reservation and all other
reservations now or hereafter established by the Federal Government
for the conservation of health.
(f ) The bureau of vital statistics, to which shall be transferred
the Bureau of Vital Statistics now located in the Department of Com­
merce and Labor, together with its present personnel and all duties,
functions, powers, rights, and prerogatives now vested by law in such
Bureau of Vital Statistics.
(y) The bureau of publication and publicity, which shall (a) publish
the reports of the secretary of health and all reports, bulletins, and
documents of all bureaus of the department of health when approved
for the purpose by the secretary of health, and (b) devise and carry
out the most effective means by which information originating in the
department of health or any of its bureaus may be most widely and
effectively disseminated for the information and guidance of the
people.
Section 3 might with equal propriety provide that (a) there shall
be a medical service of the Department of Health (b) designated by
the initials U . S. II. S., meaning “ United States Health Service,” (c) which
service shall consist of (1) a Regular Medical Corps, which shall con­
sist of the United States Marine-Hospital Corps with its present per­
sonnel and without other modification in the law governing the same, or
in the regulations enacted in pursuance of such law than may be
necessary to comply with the provisions of this act.
(2 ) A special
Medical Corps, which shall consist of all physicians, surgeons, and
medical officers now employed in any capacity in any department of the
Government, excepting in the army and navy who, subject to the direc­
tion of the secretary of health, but without having their status other­
wise disturbed, shall continue in their present capacity until the ex­
piration of their present tenure, but thereafter all such positions shall
be filled by detail from the regular Medical Corps which shall be selected
in the first instance in accordance with regulations not less exacting
than those whicli now govern entrance into the Marine-Hospital Corps,
(d) The secretary of health shall, consistently with the provisions of
this act, (1 ) define the grades of health service with due regard to the
period of service and efficiency record of its members; (2 ) prescribe
uniforms and insignia for each grade; (3) formulate rules and regula­
tions for the government of the corps, and at his discretion (4) detail
any member of the corps for duty in any bureau of the Department of
Health, or (5) for duty in any other department on request of the
secretary of such department, or (0) for duty in any State, Territory,
or dependency, or in the Panama Canal Zone when requested so to do
by the proper authority of such State, Territory, dependency, or the
Panama Canal Zone whenever the resources of the service will permit
such detail.
Section 4 might further define the duty of the secretary of health
by stating that in addition to the duties elsewhere prescribed in the
act (a) lie may, in his discretion, transfer specific duties from one
bureau to the other whenever required in the interests of both economy
and efficiency ; (b) exercise all the functions heretofore exercised, re­
spectively, by the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of the In­
terior, the Secretary of Agriculture, and the Secretary of Commerce and
Labor in connection with any bureau, division, or service transferred
by the act to the Department of Health ; (c) exercise all duties here­
tofore exercised by the Secretary of Agriculture in the enforcement of
the pure food and drugs a c t; (d) discharge such other duties as may
be prescribed from time to time by the President and, finally, (e) pre­
pare and submit reports relative to his department embracing sug­
gestions for the improvement of its service, including recommendations
for change in personnel, duties, and salaries.
Section 5 might provide (a) that the President be authorized and
directed within one year from the passage of the act to appoint an
advisory board of health to consist of six members, two to be ap­
pointed for one year, two for two years, and two for three years each,
who shall serve without pay, except their traveling expenses, for not
more than six meetings annually, and whose functions shall be to
confer with and advise the secretary of health relative to all ques­
tions of policy pertaining to human health and upon other questions
at the request of the secretary of health ; (b) the present consultative
arrangement between the present Bureau of Health and representatives
of the state boards of health might with propriety be continued be­
tween the Department of Health, its Secretary, advisory health boards,
chiefs of bureaus, and the representatives of the state boards of health.
Section 6 and succeeding sections might provide in the usual way
for the transfer of officers, clerks, employees, property, fixtures, etc.
In asking that you take the foregoing points under special consider­
ation ; that the hearing be arranged for the earliest practicable date,
and that legislation be reached, if possible, at the present session of
Congress, may I ask that you urge upon your colleagues the importance
to the people of giving due weight to the conditions to which I have
referred ?
I have said that over 600,000 of our people die every year from pre­
ventable causes. Suppose that our entire army and navy were swept
off the earth not once but three times in a year. Would the Congress
do anything about it? There are nearly 5,000,000 needlessly ill every
year.
Suppose that every man, woman, and child in all New York,
with Boston and Washington added, were similarly stricken. Would
the Congress inaugurate an inquiry? Our losses from these causes
amount to a billion and a half dollars every year. Suppose that every
dollar appropriated annually for the expense of the Government and
half as much more were actually burned up and the ashes blown into
the sea. Would the Congress take action in the premises?
Our health agencies are scattered, uncorrelated, and unorganized.
Suppose that our monetary system were looked after by a dozen or more
bureaus in almost as many departments, and that it were responsible
for a billion and a half dollars loss every year. Would the Congress
be disposed to think that there was possible relationship between the
lack of organization and the deficit?
In reiterating the request for an early and full hearing on this ques­
tion, I beg to emphasize the fact that I do so in behalf of the American
Medical Association and in behalf of the interests of the people of the
United States, as represented by and through the medical profession.
And in this behalf and in view of the fact, deducible from our vital
statistics, that in this country alone the people are dying from pre­
ventable causes at the rate of more than one every minute and that
they are falling ill from the same causes at the rate of more than
five every minute, may I not venture to suggest that the subject is
one of sufficient Importance to be entitled to precedence over some




85546— 8883

7

other questions that may possibly be engaging the attention of the
committee?
Aw aiting your early reply, I have the honor to be,
Very sincerely,
C h a k l e s A. L. R e e d ,
Chairman of the Legislative Committee,
American Medical Association.
P• S.— I beg leave to advise you that I am sending a letter to the
same purport, and largely in the same language as this, to Hon. J a m e s
R . M a n n , of the House, who has requested suggestions to be con­
sidered in committee in connection with the recommendations relative
to the public-health clause contained iu the President’s message.

Mr. President, this bill (S. 6049) coordinates and brings into
one working body the various health agencies of the Govern­
ment.
It proposes no new officers except the secretary and his as­
sistant, who should be a permanent officer, acting as a director.general. Such assistant should have this title.
It calls for no new appropriations except the salary of the
secretaries.
It will provide a number of economies by preventing duplica­
tion, and make more efficient the money expended and the
officials employed by the present health agencies of the Govern­
ment.
The coordination of these agencies has been approved by
President Taft, and the vigorous cooperation of such agencies
with the state authorities in stamping out disease has been
urged by President Roosevelt.
I quote President Taft and what he said in regard to the work
of the Committee of One Hundred in their desire to promote
the national health:
IIow nearly this movement will come in accomplishing the complete
purpose of its promoters, only the national legislator can tell. Cer­
tainly the economy of the union of all health agencies in the National
Government in one bureau or department is wise.

President Roosevelt said:
I also hope that there will be legislation Increasing the power of the
National Government to deal with certain matters concerning the health
of our people everywhere. The federal authorities, for instance, should
join with all the state authorities in warring against the dreadful
scourge of tuberculosis. I hope to see the National Government stand
abreast of the foremost state governments.

President Tuft, March 19, 1910, emphasized his opinion of the
importance of protecting the health of the people by the co­
operation within constitutional lines between the Federal Gov­
ernment and the several States. In regard to the progress made
in the control of tuberculosis by New York, before the Tubercu­
losis Congress, at Harmanus-Bleecker Hall, at Albany, N. Y.,
he said;
We should never have built the Panama Canal if we had not had the
Spanish war and had not had army surgeons who had the opportunity
to discover what it was that spread yellow fever and how yellow fever
could be subdued. I think I may say that we should never have built
the canal if we had not also discovered what it was that carried ma­
laria, for it was as much the malignant malaria as it was the yellow
fever that prevented the French from putting through that great enter­
prise. But we had had experience in Cuba and Porto Rico, and our
medical friends progressing, with a love of knowledge and a love of the
human race, had developed rules that worked, and to-day the Isthmus
of Panama, which was a hothouse of disease, a place that one took his
life in his hands to visit, has become as healthful as any of our South­
ern States, and it has been done by carrying out the recommendations
of the medical profession and enforcing the rules of hygiene laid down
by them and put through under law.
I have no doubt that the same thing can be done with respect to
tuberculosis in any community, and I congratulate the people of the
State of New York that they have made such progress in this matter.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
We have an Agricultural Department and we are spending $14,000,000
or $ 1 5 ,0 0 0 , 0 0 0 a year to tell the farmers, by the results of our research,
how they ought to treat the soil and how they ought to treat the cat­
tle and the horses, with a view to having good hogs and good cattle and
good horses. Now, there is nothing in the Constitution especially about
hogs or cattle or horses, and If out of the Public Treasury at Washing­
ton we can establish a department for that purpose, it doe3 not seem to
be a long step or a stretch of logic to say that we have the power to
spend the money in a bureau of research to tell how we can develop
good men and good women. Some of our enthusiastic conservators of
national resources have calculated how much the life of each man and
each woman in the community is worth to that community. I do not
think it necessary to resort to that financial calculation in order to
justify the saving of human life, such as can be accomplished by the
results of research and advice that will proceed from a bureau of health
properly established at Washington and circulating the results of its
investigation through the country.
It is quite true that Congress has no authority to lay down rules of
action in matters of this sort for the States. It can only do so in the
District of Columbia. And I am sorry to say that if your experts were
to investigate the hygiene of the departments at Washington you would
find them to fall far short of the rules which your society and your
law here lay down for preserving the health and preventing the spread
of tuberculosis. We have much to learn there from you, and I am hope­
ful, by the constant assault that the American Medical Association and
other earnest associations of physicians are making upon the National
Government, that within a few years we shall have recognized authority
in Washington whose direction shall be followed out at least in the
District of Columbia.
Almost the closest assistant that I had in the W ar Department- and
who is still with me in the service of the Government— a great, stalwart
man-*—was reported to me suddenly one day as having tuberculosis. I
had authority over him, because he was a soldier, and I ordered him to

8

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD

Fort Bayard, Is. Mex. He went out there, he was put to bed and
*e
Ped *or s*x months, and in that dry atmosphere, after nine
months treatment, he came back to me and the country a whole, healthtul man. And that has happened in a number o f instances under the
direction and control of Doctor Bushnell, at Fort Bayard, N. M e x .;
and, therefore, I speak with confidence as to the curability of this
disease. We can not all go to Fort Bayard, N. Mex., however much
the New Mexicans might like to have us there to justify their entry to
Statehood ; but they have demonstrated there the possibility of cure,
and I doubt not that under the directions of Doctor Trudeau and the
other authorities the rules have been developed to such a point that if
followed out closely, progressing into each community, we shall reach
the stage in 1915, *or later, that we contemplate, where this dreadful
scourge of mankind shall be conquered, as we have now conquered
malaria and as we have now conquered the yellow fever.

I introduced this bill providing for a department and not for
a bureau. The reason for a department instead of a bureau is
perfectly obvious and perfectly unanswerable.
I reiterate and indorse the five substantial reasons given by
Charles A. L. Reed, chairman o f the legislative committee of
the American Medical Association, and invite special attention
to the cogency of the reasons given.
It is generally agreed that these bureaus should all be brought
together as one working body. To bring established bureaus
under a new “ bureau of public health ” would be to lower the
dignity of the present bureaus by making them the subordinate
bureaus of a new bureau, which would be offensive to every
bureau so subordinated.
To bring these bureaus under a department would not lower
the prestige of a bureau thus coordinated with other bureaus
under the department, and would, I believe, generally meet the
approval of the government officers employed in the various
bureaus so coordinated, giving them a new dignity by being a
distinct branch of a department o f public health, through which
they could enlarge their efficiency and find better expression
and publicity of work done for the public health.
We have had bureaus affecting the public health for one hun­
dred years. They are scattered in eight departments. They
have been disconnected and without coordination. They have
even been jealous of each other, the one nullifying and hamper­
ing the work of another. They have been without a responsible
head because of this subdivision and because the chief of the
most important of these bureaus, the Surgeon-General of the
Public Health and Marine-Hospital Service, can not express an
opinion or give information until he has consulted the Secretary
of the Treasury—a system that is absolutely ridiculous.
The Secretary of the Treasury was not selected as a Cabinet
officer because of his knowledge of the public health, but because
he was an expert on finance. At present our Cabinet expert on
finance directs government activities in controlling bubonic
plague, and the board of trade and a few commercialized physi­
cians of San Francisco would be more important in his eyes in
all human probability than the chief of one of his subordinate
bureaus; at all events this was true as to a previous Secretary.
BUBONIC PLAGU E ON T H E P A C IF IC COAST.

The most dangerous epidemic known to the world has been
the bubonic plague, a germ disease capable almost of explosive
epidemic. “After an incubation of from four to seven days with
headache, vertigo, and mental depression there comes a chill, a
raging fever, great prostration, occasional vomiting of bile and
blood; the glands in the neck, under the arms, at the elbows, in
the groins, under the knees, all over the body, become red and
swollen, tender, and extremely painful. They turn dark, become
tilled with pus. If not opened, burst spontaneously. The dis­
ease is sometimes attended with abscesses, boils, and carbuncles.
About this time the agony of life and the sting o f death are
both overcome by a merciful unconsciousness,” and the mass of
human putrid flesh ceases to breathe and the heart is stilled.
This was the “ black death ” of London, killing about 70,000
people with incredible speed—a thousand dying a day. At
Marseilles 87,000 died; 200,000 in Moscow.
It is the most dreaded and dangerous of all international epi­
demics. In the Bombay outbreak, of 220,000 cases 164,000 deaths
occurred. It is a disease which infests rats, squirrels, rabbits,
and all animals that carry fleas, and large areas may be in­
fected before the human form violently develops. It is the first
disease mentioned in international sanitary agreements.
When the bubonic plague broke, out in San Francisco in
1900—one of our importations from the Orient, known in former
times as the black death or the plague—the city board of health
of San Francisco quarantined the Chinese district. The United
States circuit judge, on June 15, 1900, influenced by the com­
mercial spirit of San Francisco, declared the city quarantine
illegal, gratuitously observing in his opinion:
If It were within the province of this court to decide the point, I
sh ou ld hold th a t th ere is n o t n ow and n e v er has heen a ca se o f p lagu e
in th is c ity .

If this high authority (? ) on bubonic plague should also have
decided, “ if within the province of his court, that there never
85546— 8883




a

would be
case in San Francisco,” his judgment in the one
case would be as illuminating as in the other.
Bubonic plague was then (1900) in the city. It is now scat­
tered over the Pacific coast at points a thousand miles apart, and
is requiring enormous sums of money to stamp it ou t; and it has
not been stamped out, but is now endemic and spreading through
the infection o f ground squirrels and rats, which continually
infect each other and spread the germs of the disease over en­
larging areas and at any time may break out in our thickly
congested centers with tragic results that may stagger the
Nation.
This opinion of the United States circuit judge (1900) was fol­
lowed with an immediate federal quarantine of the State of Califoinia, wliicli was tli6 duty of the government officers in charge
under the obligation of the United States to the several States
of the Union and to the nations of the world. The MarineHospital Service officials declared this quarantine.
The governor of California and the commercial bodies of San
Francisco immediately suppressed the Marine-Hospital Service
through the Secretary of the Treasury, compelled the SurgeonGeneral to yield, proved a false case, and made it temporarily
stand as the truth before the country. They furnished evi­
dence and proved that there was no bubonic plague in San
Francisco, notwithstanding the fact bubonic plague was there
in sober truth. In any other State the same thing, in all
human probability, would have occurred, for men act alike
under like temptation.
I do not refer to, and I hope it will not be conceived that I
have any desire on earth to criticise, an individual. It is not
the individual, ^either official or unofficial, of whom I speak.
The point I wish to emphasize is that this bureau of public
health was not strong enough to stand up against the power of
a sovereign State demanding that its commerce should not be
interfered with by the publicity of the full truth of the presence
of the plague. Commercialism triumphed over the interests of
the public health because the agencies of the public health were
too weak.
We should not endure such a system any longer, and the
bureau chief who opposes the improvement in this service for
fear of losing some personal prestige exhibits a spirit that
demonstrates he is no longer capable of rendering the country
the highest public service.
The Marine-Hospital Service finally persuaded the Secretary
of the Interior to cause an inquiry in January, 1901, through
experts of the highest class, Prof. Simon Flexner, of the Uni­
versity of Pennsylvania; Prof. F. G. Novy, University of Michi­
gan ; Prof. L. F. Barker, University of Chicago. This unan­
swerable authoritative report was made on February 26, 1901,
finding numerous cases of bubonic plague in the heart of San
Francisco. The United States quarantine law of February 15,
1893 (sec. 4, 27 Stats. 451), required its immediate publica­
tion. I am advised that it was suppressed until April 19, 1901,
and until it had been given publicity by the Occidental Medical
Times, the Journal of the American Medical Association, the
Medical News, and the Sacramento Bee.
Again the commercial interests of San Francisco had triumphed
over the bureau and compelled the Surgeon-General, the head
of the bureau, by an order o f his superior officer, the Secretary
of the Treasury, to agree to suppress this report, contrary to the
obvious moral and sanitary duty of the United States. From
that time bubonic plague has widened the area of its terribly
dangerous infection from Los Angeles to Seattle, passing from
rat to rat and squirrel to squirrel and from these animals to
an occasional human being through the agency of the common
flea. Various experts o f the Marine-Hospital Service, who
immediately after the report of 1901 discovered the infection
outside of San Francisco and reported the truth, were by some
strange fatality shortly after their several reports removed
from such duty faithfully performed and sent to the ends of
the world—to Honolulu, to Ecuador, and so forth. The reward
of their faithful service seems to have been a humiliating re­
moval at the demand of their commercial opponents. It is
most interesting history, the details of which might with pro­
priety be given to the Senate as showing the destructive power
commercial interests can exert over the faithful servants of
subordinate bureau.
I wish to put in the R ecord a statement of Surgeon-General
Wyman, of the Public Health and Marine-Hospital Service,
with regard to this matter, which I had no opportunity of ob­
taining until this morning. The following statement he dic­
tated to my secretary at a few minutes before the Senate met
this morning by permission of the Assistant Secretary of the
Treasury:

a

a

W ith regard to the publicity in 1900 and 1901 during the prevalence
of plague in San Francisco, Cal., there was no effort on the part of the
bureau nor the department to suppress the facts nor to minimize them.

CONGRESSIONAL’ RECORD.
The Surgeon-General was In constant consultation with the Senators
from Califcrnia with regard to the situation, and also with the depart­
ment, and there was no difference of opinion among any of the three
branches with regard to the treatment of the subject. The facts were
freely published in the weekly public-health reports, and while there
was endeavors to suppress by newspapers in San Francisco, that was
not the case with regard to the government publication. There was a
time when the commission of three experts were sent out there and
verified the existence of the plague, and it was known that their full
report was on its way when it was evident a great sensation was ex­
pected, and the full report of the committee was not published imme­
diately, although the essential facts were published. It was evident
that a wide sensation beyond what was necessary and what was proper
could have been made out of the report of this committee, and it was
so handled that while the central facts were not delayed, still the sen­
sational report which would inflict injury upon the State of California
for an indefinite number of years was prevented.

The point I make is that wide publicity ought to have been
given the truth in accordance with our international agree­
ments ; wide publicity ought to have been given so as to protect
each State of the Union. I understand that the State of Texas
desired the facts contained in that report and could not get
them. I understand that other States called for that report
and could not get it until it was printed in the public press by
others than our public-health service.
Mr. GALLINGER. Mr. President-----The PRESIDING OFFICER [Mr. G u gg en h eim in the Chair].
Does the Senator from Oklahoma yield to the Senator from
New Hampshire?
Mr. OWEN. I yield to the Senator from New Hampshire.
Mr. GALLINGER. The Senator does not lay that charge
against the supervising Surgeon-General of the Public Health
and Marine-Hospital Service, does he?
Mr. OWEN. I f the Senator will express what charge he
means, I will answer him.
Mr. GALLINGER. The charge of the suppression of the
fact of the existence of this disease in San Francisco.
Mr. OWEN. I am informed that the report o f the three
experts who were sent out for the purpose of this examination
was not made public until after it had been given to the
public press by the Sacramento Bee and other papers.
Mr. GALLINGER. I f there was suppression, it must have
been by the head of one of the departments.
Mr. OWEN. Oh, I think so.
Mr. GALLINGER. Y es; and not by the Supervising SurgeonGeneral.
Mr. OWEN. I do not think the Surgeon-General can be held
responsible for it, and I do not hold him responsible.
Mr. GALLINGER. I happen to know that the Supervising
Surgeon-General of the Public Health and Marine-Hospital
Service was intensely interested in that matter.
Mr. OWEN. Oh, yes; but, notwithstanding his intense in­
terest, this report was suppressed.
Mr. GALLINGER. It might have been suppressed, but not
by the Supervising Surgeon-General.
Mr. OWEN. N o ; it was suppressed by our expert on finance—
the Secretary of the Treasury—whereas it ought to have been
in the charge of an expert on health—the secretary of public
health—who could not be suppressed by a secretary o f finance or
of commerce.
Mr. GALLINGER. That may be; but I am very sure that
the bubonic plague in San Francisco was pretty well taken care
of by the Public Health and Marine-Hospital Service. There is
no doubt about that.
Mr. OWEN. Their employees did the best they could; but
I am advised the people out there, in the meantime, also had
sufficient influence to send the experts who found the bubonic
plague outside of San Francisco to Ecuador, to Honolulu, and
to other distant points. I feel it my duty to say that this
history ought to be exposed in the Senate, and I think a con­
gressional inquiry ought to be made into it. It is a national
scandal that the people of the United States broadcast should
be exposed to the bubonic plague in this country and should
have no proper department of health to protect them.
Mr. GALLINGER. Mr. President, I am afraid the Senator is
drawing on the imagination of certain people who have imposed
upon him.
Mr. OWEN. I think not.
Mr. GALLINGER. I am afraid he is.
Mr. OWEN. I do not think so.
Mr. GALLINGER. I think that-----Mr. OWEN. I am prepared to give the details in extenso if
the Senator invites it, and I will place upon these records the
whole story.
Mr. GALLINGER. I should certainly invite it, and I do in­
vite It.
Mr. OWEN. Then I will immediately prepare this record,
and I will place it before the Senate just as soon as it can be
gotten together—probably in two days.




85645— 8883------2

9

Mr. GALLINGER. Mr. President, I trust that in making up
that record the Senator will consult with the Supervising
Surgeon-General of the Public Health and Marine-Hospital
Service-----Mr. OWEN. With pleasure.
Mr. GALLINGER. And ascertain precisely what was done
by that great bureau.
Mr. OWEN. With the greatest pleasure. I would despise
myself if I should knowingly deal unjustly with any man. I
have no purpose on earth except to serve the health of the
people of the United States and to serve the cause of truth, as
I understand it.
I did not quite finish with the statement of the SurgeonGeneral. I called him up two weeks ago, telling him what I
wanted with regard to a “ department of public health; ” and
I would have been glad to have consulted with him, but he had
to wait until the head o f his department came back before he
could talk with me. How dignified and impressive is this
Bureau of Public Health of the United States. Its chief—the
Surgeon-General—can not discuss the questions affecting the
Public Health Service with a Senator of the United States until
our expert on finance comes home.
Well, Mr. President, immediate publicity of the expert re­
port was prevented. California was not “ advertised ” as hav­
ing bubonic plague by our health service when this report of
February 26, 1901, was received. As mild a mention as possi­
ble was made of cases in an obscure way shortly thereafter,
but only after the papers had given the expert report wide pub­
licity. Now, reports are still coming showing cases of recur­
rent bubonic plague, and not much attention is given to them,
although they occur from Southern California out to Seattle.
It is a very important matter. It is a very deadly and difficult
disease to suppress and it may easily infect this country from
one end to the other before we know it. We were told by t.h«
newspapers that it was an inconsequential matter, a trifle, that
the disease was merely local, and that it would soon be disposed
of. We are now, after ten years, finding infected rats and
squirrels at points a thousand miles apart on the Pacific slope.
The point I wish to emphasize is that the bureau dealing with
public health was easily suppressed by commercialism and it*
supposed interests (putting in jeopardy the national health,
the national honor, and the National Treasury), and required
to withhold and suppress the truth in violation of section 4 of
the quarantine laws of the Untied States.
They have spent over a million dollars in trying to extirpate it
and they have not been able to do so. It is still going on. T
call the attention of the Senate to the expenditures of money
for this purpose. In 1908 we expended for the suppression of
plague, $228,337.22; in 1909 we expended for the suppression of
plague, $337,403.13; for 1910 we appropriated $750,000 and
$187,771 unexpended balance—in all, $937,771—for the prevention
of epidemics of cholera, typhus and yellow fever, smallpox, and
bubonic plague (called also Chinese plague or black death).
Nearly all of this appropriation was really desired for bubonic
plague, which was the only epidemic seriously threatening the
United States. Fortunately, we have $724,000 of this on hand.
So, from no danger, Mr. President, in 1901, 1902, and 1903, the
danger grew to the request for an appropriation of over $900,000
in 1910. There has been over a million dollars expended and
the plague has not been suppressed. The bureau was prevented
giving publicity to the truth, and Mazatlan, Mexico, was in­
fected in consequence of no sufficient precaution.
Here is the most fatal disease of history, which we are told
is “ not dangerous.” Ten years have passed since it was “ not
dangerous,” and we have appropriated practically a million
dollars to suppress this deadly peril “ that is not dangerous,”
and that is not “ advertised ” because it might hurt somebody’s
commercial feelings.
OUR

IN T ERN AT IO N AL

OBLIGATIONS.

A department of public health is absolutely essential in order
to deal with this matter and with similar questions with the full
power and dignity of this Government and in order to faith­
fully and honorably comply with the state and international
sanitary obligations of the United States.
The first article of the first title of the International Sanitary
Convention of Paris, 1903, with Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bel­
gium, Brazil, France, Spain, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, Lux­
emburg, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Persia, Portugal, Roumania, Russia, Servia, Switzerland, Egypt, and the United
States, is as follows:
A r t i c l e 1. Each government shall immediately notify the other gov­
ernments of the first appearance in its territory of authentic cases of
plague or cholera.

Particulars are required, constant information provided, and
preventive measures showing the opinion of the experts of every

10

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD.

nation as to the extreme importance of protecting the world
against bubonic plague.
Yet our Marine-Hospital Bureau was prevented from making
the truth known, and even in its publications made its notice as
obscure as possible for several years. The bureau understood
the importance of publishing the truth; the bureau desired to
tell the truth, but it was suppressed. I refer to this painful his­
tory not to criticise the unhappy, miserable, and weak bureau,
but to point out the fatal weakness of a subordinated bureau
as compared with the dignity and power of a department.

mates that fifty active years of a working man’s life represents
a total of $15,000. I f death should occur at the age of 25, the
economic loss to society would be $13,695; at 35, $10,395; at
50, $4,405.
Mr. President, I doubt if any Member of the Senate would
regard this measure of economic value as excessive, yet this
estimate would make our preventable death loss equal an
annual charge of over $6,000,000,000.
The annual loss from tuberculosis is a hundred and fifty
thousand lives to the United States at the average age of 35
years, a terrific social and economic loss.
O BL IG A T IO N S TO AM ERICAN R E P U B L IC S.
Most of this loss could be avoided.
The first general International Sanitary Convention of the
SAVIN G OF L IF E IN NEW YO RK .
American Republics, held at the Willard Hotel, Washington,
December 2-4, 1902, adopted resolutions of the delegates pro­
I submit a table of the department of health of the city of
viding a provisional programme and emphasizing the sanitary New York, showing the general death rate from 1886 to 1908,
convention adopted by the Second International Conference of improving from 25.99 to 16.52 per thousand, nearly 10 to the
the American States, held in the City of Mexico October 22, thousand and an improvement o f nearly 40 per cent. (E x­
hibit 2.)
1901, to January 22, 1902.
The convention of January 22, 1902, approved by the duly
The tuberculosis death rate has improved from 4.42 to the
authorized delegates of the United States, Mexico, Bolivia, Co­ thousand to 2.29 to the thousand, a like improvement.
lombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Sal­
In Paris the death rate from tuberculosis is twice as great,
vador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Peru, and but, Mr. President, death from tuberculosis in Greater New
Uruguay, pledged the representative governments to cooperate York alone in 1908 was 10,147 persons, and from all causes
with each other toward maintaining efficient and modem sani­ 72,072. (Exhibit 3.)
tary conditions, and provided:
The vast improvement which has been made in the saving of
That each and all of their respective health organizations shall be life is clearly shown from the tables to which I call the atten­
Instructed to notify promptly the diplomatic or consular representatives tion o f the Senate.
of the republics represented in this conference of the existence or prog­
I submit, also, Table No. 3, showing a great improvement in
ress within their several respective territories of any of the following
diseases: Cholera, yellow fever, b u b on ic p la gu e, and any other serious the death rate of children under 1 year of age during the sum­
pestilential outbreak.
mer months, from 1891 to 1909, in which the death rate has been
That it shall be made th e d u ty o f th e s a n ita ry a u th o rities in each
(Exhibit 4.)
p o r t p rio r to sa ilin g o f th e v e s s e l to n o t e on th e v e s s e l’ s bill o f h ealth decreased one-half.
I submit Exhibit No. 5, the method of the department of
th e tra n sm issib le d isea ses w h ich m a y e x is t in su ch p o r t at th a t tim e.
The Surgeon-General of the United States Public Health and health, in controlling tuberculosis.
I particularly desire to submit to the Senate for their physical
Marine-Hospital Service was president of the convention at
Washington of December 2, 1902. Mexico, not having been inspection certain maps showing the number of cases of tuber­
properly advised of the existence of bubonic plague at San Fran­ culosis in certain down-town sections of New York Ctiy, in the
cisco, as agreed by the international convention of January 22, Cherry and Market streets quarter and Cherry and Pearl
1902, Mazatlan was infected, and because of such failure of the streets neighborhood and the immense improvement obtained
officers of the United States to honorably comply with this con­ by a few years of effort. (Exhibits 6, 7, and 8.)
On Cherry street you will observe, in the center of the block,
vention, was unable to take sanitary or quarantine precaution.
The apology made for our conduct in this matter by Edward one house with 22 cases of tuberculosis reported between 1894
Liceago, president of the superior board of health of the Re­ and 1898. The same house the next four years was reduced to
public of Mexico (see report, 1903-4, on Public Health, p. 11), 6 cases.
In the house adjacent to it there were 15 cases between 1894
says:
and 1898 and 2 cases between 1899 and 1903. In the next house
T h e a u th o rities o f San F ra n cisco , Cal., fearing that the quarantine
restrictions would perhaps impose on their commerce a closure of for­ were 13 cases in the first period and 3 cases in the second pe­
eign ports, had ca r e fu lly con cea led th e e x is te n c e o f p la gu e and had g iv en riod, showing the splendid results obtained in New York City
clea n bills o f h ea lth to sh ips lea vin g th a t p o rt.
by the effort of their sanitary authorities in four short years;
This infection of Mazatlan in December, 1902, took place but in this block between Cherry, Cathiden, Hamilton, and
nearly a year after the United States was bound by the sani­ Market streets were 178 cases of tuberculosis, making the dan­
tary convention of January 22, 1902, at Mexico Gity, to give ger of infection to every person entering this block a matter of
Mexico notice.
almost physical certainty.
What apology shall we offer other nations for such a viola­
New York has done glorious work in reducing the ravages of
tion of our international obligations to Mexico? What shall this terrible disease.
we say to Peru, Colombia, Chile, and the other American Re­
Such a section of a great city may be properly described as
publics for this gross breach of public faith?
a charnal house, where the poor are denied a fair opportunity
Will they be content when we say this matter was in the care of life by the grinding processes of unthinking commercial en­
of a subordinate little bureau, which was thoughtlessly overruled ergy and power, and are dying by thousands when they might
by a secretary of finance not in sympathy with such a subject- be saved to the great economic gain of the United States, to
matter? What shall we say to the state boards of health of the great financial and commercial advantage of this Nation.
Texas, Indiana, Colorado, and other state boards that demanded I do not make an appeal on the basis of humanity and patriot­
the report of the experts of the Marine-Hospital Bureau, and ism alone, but I put it upon the cold basis that ought to appeal
were denied the full truth as to the bubonic plague in Cali­ to the commercial instinct of the Nation, even if some men
fornia?
in the insane race for commercial and financial power and
Mr. President, a miserable bureau will not d o! It has been prestige seem to have forgotten the value of human life and of
tried in the balance and found wanting.
human happiness.
The importance of the subject-matter, the dignity and honor
PRESEN T COST OF H E A L T H AG EN CIES OF U N ITED STATES.
of the United States, its international agreements, and the
The United States made appropriations for the present fiscal
health and welfare of the world demand a department and a year for sanitary and health purposes in the following amounts,
secretary of public health.
as nearly as I can ascertain;
T U BE RCU LO SIS.

Mr. President, Frederick L. Hoffman, statistician of the Pru­
dential Life Insurance Company (Statistical Laws of Tubercu­
losis, American Medical Journal, 1904), estimates the commer­
cial loss per annum to the United States from tuberculosis alone
at $240,000,000.
Collier’ s editorial ( “ Expressed in money,” July 25,1908) esti­
mates the loss from tuberculosis alone at $330,000,000 per an­
num, and says:
Is it any wonder, then, that the best physicians are heart and soul
engaged in the study of its prevention?

Mr. Hoffman ( “ Physical and medical aspects of labor and
industry,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and
Social Science, May, 1906) endeavors to establish the approxi­
mate measure of the social and economic value of life, and esti* 5546—




8883

Department of Commerce and Labor.
N a v y ___________________________________
W a r --------------------------------------------------------Treasury ------------------------------------------------In terior--------------------------------------------------Agriculture-------------------------------------------Bureau of Public Printer.
District of Columbia-------T o t a l _________________________________________________

$533, 000. 00
1, 827, 428. 00
6, 400, 734. 00
2, 512, 733. 00
1, 748, 350. 00
1, 275, 820. 00
3, 405. 79
7, 270. 00
663, 680. 00

14, 972, 320. 79

A total of nearly fifteen millions. This does not include the
service in the Philippine Islands, Porto Rico, nor Cuba, nor 114
physicians, nor 28 nurses among the Indians, nor the one hun­
dred and odd clerks in the medical division of the Pension
Office, nor the medical attention to sick prisoners, nor for the
collection of medical statistics by the Census Bureau.

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD.
There appear to be over 12,000 persons employed in this serv­
ice, not including those engaged in Porto Rico, Cuba, Panama,
the Philippines, nor in the Agricultural Department.
These agencies ought to be considered in one department It
meets the best opinion in the United States.
The people of the United States are ready to support a de­
partment of public health and will indorse this general policy
of concentrating all of the health agencies of government.
“A department of public health ” has been indorsed by the Na­
tional Grange (Des Moines, 1909) ; by the American Federa­
tion o f Labor, with about 2,000,000 members; by the American
Medical Association, with about 80,000 physicians and surgeons
affiliated; by the National Child-Labor Committee; by the Con­
ferences of Governors; and in one form or another by every
political platform.
The Republican platform for 1908 says:
W e commend the efforts made to secure greater efficiency in na­
tional public-health agencies and favor such legislation as will effect
its purpose.

The Ohio Republican platform of this year declared in
favor of—
The organization of all existing national public-health agencies into
tt single national public-health department.

In Connecticut and other States similar declarations have
been made.
The Democratic platform in 1908 in like manner states:
We advocate the organization of all existing national public-health
agencies into a national bureau of public health, with such power over
sanitary conditions connected with factories, mines, tenements, child
labor, and such other conditions, connected within jurisdiction of Fed­
eral Government— and which do not interfere with the power of the
States controlling public-health agencies.

The Committee of One Hundred of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science and the American Medical
Association, with 80,000 members, advocate a plank in a na­
tional platform in sentiment as follow s:
Believing a vigorous, healthy population to be our greatest national
asset, and that the growth, power, and prosperity of the country de­
pends primarily upon the physical welfare of its people and upon their
protection from preventable pestilences of both foreign and domestic
origin and from all other preventable causes of disease and death, in­
cluding the sanitary supervision of factories, mines, tenements, child
labor, and other places and conditions of public employment or occu­
pation involving health and life, we advocate the organization of all
existing national public-health agencies into a national department of
public health, with such powers and duties as will give the Federal
Government control over public-health interests not conserved by and
belonging to the States, respectively.
T H E CO NSERVATIO N OB' L IF E , H E A L T H , AND E F F IC IE N C Y .

Mr. President, I believe in the conservation of our natural
resources—of our coal fields, oil and gas fields, water powers,
forests, and mines; the development of our natural resources in
establishing good roads and improving our waterways.
The conservation of these great natural resources of our na­
tional wealth are of great importance, but the conservation of
the life and efficiency of our people is of far greater importance,
and should not be destroyed or impaired by unthinking com­
mercialism. The conservation of the vitality and efficiency of
our people is a problem of the first magnitude, demanding im­
mediate intelligent attention^
Why conserve coal fields and not coal miners?
Why conserve plant life and not human life?
Why conserve animal life and not child life?
We conserve our water powers and forests and forget our
people.
We have a great department conserving animal life and plant
life and no department conserving human life.
This can not continue.
I earnestly invite the Senate to consider Senate bill No. 6049
and the Report on National Vitality, by the Committee o f One
Hundred on National Health, which has been published as a
Senate document and which gives in a compact form the essen­
tial principles relative to this matter, an abstract and sum­
mary of which I insert as Exhibit 1.
Under a department of public health these problems can be
worked out with far greater efficiency. The cooperation of the
authorities of the several States of the Union and of the munici­
palities of the several States, each one operated along the lines
of constitutional propriety, can be established by a department
of public health with much greater efficiency than through a
subordinate bureau.
Indeed, under a subordinate bureau such cooperation is im­
practicable. The bureau has not sufficient dignity or power in an
emergency. It has no national standing. It can not take the
Initiative, but must always stand subject to the orders of a
Secretary too greatly influenced by mere apparent commercial
and fiscal interest. A bureau of public health so controlled is
pitiful, if not despicable, as an agency of an enlightened Nation.

35548— 8883




11

Mr. President, I present this bill (S. 6049) to the Senate with
no pride of authorship, because I deserve no credit in that re­
spect, and am perfectly willing to assist a bill drawn by any
other Senator which shall better accomplish the purposes which
I have at heart.
I realize that my colleagues are Intensely preoccupied with
the multitude of demands upon their time and attention.
But this is a question o f vast national importance. In eight
years we have increased our expenditures over the average of
preceding years by the huge sum of $1,072,000,000 for the army
and navy (see speech of Mr. T awney , chairman of the Com­
mittee on Appropriations (R ecord, Mar. 4, 1909, 8835), and are
spending 70 per cent of the national income to cover the obliga­
tions of past wars and the preparation for possible future war,
or about seven hundred millions per annum for such purposes.
But for war on preventable diseases, now costing us infinite
treasure in life, efficiency, and commercial power and prestige,
we spend practically nothing and do not even employ the
agencies we have in an efficient manner.
In the name of the people of the United States, and of the
great State of Oklahoma especially, and in the name o f the
American Medical Association, whose 80,000 associates and mem­
bers are the faithful and self-sacrificing guardians of the health
of our people, and in the name o f the Committee of One Hundred
of the American Federation of Labor, of the National Grange, and
of the various health boards of the 46 States of the Union and of
the great body of learned men who unanimously desire im­
proved sanitation and the application of the improved agencies
of preventing disease, disability, and death, I pray the Senate
to establish a department of public health, with a Cabinet officer
at the head of it.
The principle of the bill meets the general approval of th«
public-health societies and o f the medical associations of the
United States, and there should be no difficulty in perfecting
this bill and in impressing upon the country the importance
of organized effort to control the ravages of tuberculosis,
typhoid and malarial fevers, bubonic plague, and other pre­
ventable diseases, which inflict such enormous injury upon the
people of the United States, impose such vast, but needless,
human misery and pain, with so great financial loss and loss of
prestige and power.
A commercial nation will not be unmindful of the commercial
value of the saving of life and efficiency possible, which ia
easily worth $3,000,000,000 per annum.
A humane nation will not fail to act when it is known that
we could save the lives o f 600,000 of our people annually,
prevent the sickness of 3,000,000 of people per annum, who
now suffer from preventable disease, and greatly abate the
enormous volume of human pain, misery, and death.
I believe in the conservation of our natural resources, and
I believe in the conservation of the life and health of our
people, the protection of the children of this country from
preventable diseases, from infected milk, from infected ice, and
from other things which unnecessarily destroy their tender
lives. I have submitted here, as evidence of what can be done,
the substantial results shown to have been accomplished in
New York City in the protection of child life. I have offered
the tables as exhibits, asking those Senators who take an in­
terest in the subject to look at them and see what they really
mean.
Thousands of people are ignorantly and needlessly exposed
to the poison of the mosquito and fly, to bad water, bad air,
bad food. We ought to have every school-teacher in the United
States with bulletins in his hands, teaching the lessons of sim­
ple public health, the lessons that will protect the children
from the infected mosquito, that will protect the country
family from the infected fly that causes typhoid fever. We
ought to save the lives of those people, and we can not do it
with a health bureau that has to ask the Secretary of the
Treasury before the head of that bureau may make a comment
on a public-health question.
It is unspeakably bad to have such a system of government.
I think we ought to amend it; that we ought to amend it with­
out delay, and that no pride of opinion ought to stand in the
way.
I feel that I am a bad advocate because I can not speak as
temperately as I ought to speak. I feel that I alienate the sym­
pathy of men whose sympathy I desire, and that my zeal may
lead them to question the accuracy and sobriety of my judg­
ment. If Senators can only take the time to examine the facts,
they will perceive I have not really stated the case as stiongly
or as well as it might easily have been done by others.
I trust, Mr. President, that the Senate may not fail to take
action in regard to this matter at the present session.

12

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD

Mr. GALLINGER. Mr. President, I do not agree with the
Senator from Oklahoma that he is a bad advocate. I think he
ia a most excellent advocate. The Senator complains because
the Supervising Surgeon-General of the Public Health and Ma­
rine-Hospital Service has to consult a Cabinet minister. That
is due to an executive proclamation, I take it. But, is the Senator
curing it? The Senator is going to make a department o f the
Government, called the department of commerce, labor, and
health, and the “ health ” is to be a bureau under that depart­
ment.
Mr. OWEN. Not at all.
Mr. GALLINGER. That is the way the Senator’s bill reads.
Mr. OWEN. No, sir.
Mr. GALLINGER. Then I have read it Incorrectly, and I
will examine it again and In my own time call attention to it.
Mr. OWEN. I should be deeply obliged to the Senator if he
would read the bill.
Mr. GALLINGER. I will. I have read it only casually.
Mr. OWEN. It provides for a department of public health,
without regard to any other department, and makes it independ­
ent of any other department, because it is the most important
agency in which the United States can be engaged.
Mr. GALLINGER. I think I am right.
Mr. OWEN. I f we were going to abolish any o f the secre­
taries, I would abolish the Secretary o f War and the Secretary
of the Navy and leave the military and naval administration
of the Government with the trained men of the War College and
with the military experts o f life-long training and use these ex­
perts in time of war as the heads of these military bureaus by
promotion on m erit The present Secretaries are advisers in
the Cabinet merely of matters o f civil administration in times
of profound peace and hold their portfolios chiefly as an excuse
for their existence in a Cabinet administering the affairs of a
peaceful Nation and in no urgent need o f their advice as experts
in war.
Mr. FLETCHER. I f the Senator will allow me to interrupt
him for just a moment, this is a very important matter, and I
certainly feel indebted to the Senator for the care with which
he has examined it. The question in my mind is whether the
present Public Health and Marine-Hospital Service could not
be utilized to do the work and accomplish the purpose the Sena­
tor aims at by this bill. That service is quite well equipped;
it has a number of efficient and capable officers, the necessary
material and machinery, and it would seem that possibly— I
inquire of the Senator whether or not he has considered that—
divisions might be created and the authority be vested in those
divisions, and in the present Marine-Hospital Service, to carry
out precisely what the Senator intends to carry out by creating
this special department.
Mr. OWEN. The effect of this bill is to take the MarineHospital Service and erect it into a department of public health,
and bring into it all the other agencies affecting sanitation and
public health in the departments where they are now scattered,
so that there shall be one authoritative head on the question of
public health.
I do not wish to belittle in any way the Marine-Hospital Serv­
ice. It is a very useful bureau, and has been particularly so in
the matter of yellow fever at New Orleans.
Mr. FLETCHER. In this connection I ask leave to have
printed in the R ecord , following this discussion, a short article
appearing in Florida Health Notes. I think it would be of
some consequence if the Senate had the use of it.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so or­
dered.
The article referred to is as follows:
N A TIO N A L H E A L T H A D M IN IS T R A T IO N .

Possibly there may be “ something doing “ in Congress this winter
in regard to an assembling under one head of the various bureaus now
in control of government health matters, to be designated as “ The
Bureau of Public Health.” President T aft, in his annual message to
Congress, is quoted by the press of the country as recommending such
a procedure by say in g:
“ There seems to be no good reason why all the bureaus and offices
in the General Government which have to do with the public health or
subjects akin thereto should not be united in a bureau to be called
‘ The Bureau of Public Health.’ ”
If Surgeon-General Wyman will consent and Congress will so legis­
late, there really does not seem to be any valid reason, come to think
of it, or objection to adopting President T a ft’s suggestion by utilizing
the present Public Health and Marine-Hospital Service for this pur­
pose.
The Notes thinks that this service, with an already too long a title,
has been in fact the Public Health Bureau of the country for several
years, and could, without any violent upheaval of routine, be made
the National Bureau of Public Health, and could be so reorganized as
to embrace in its administration all factors connected with the publichealth management of the country.
The Public Health and Marine-Hospital Service in the scope of work
which for the past ten or fifteen years it has been doing has outgrown,
so to speak, to a large degree, its original purpose, namely, that of
taring for the sick and disabled seamen of the merchant-marine service

3 5 5 4 0 -8 8 8 3




t?1® couBt ^T’ so that
Present hyphenated title Is incongruous In
that two distinct purposes, purely medical and a sanitary administra­
tive, are coupled with each other when each are distinct in aim and
Intention.
W ithout confusion or any very radical change it seems to the Notes
that a bureau of public health could be so constituted that the medical
feature of marine-hospital management could be made one of the
divisions of the organization rather than the principal feature of the
organization itself, and that, too, without in the least detracting from
or impairing the efficiency of the medical aid and assistance as now
given the merchant-marine service of the country.
The Notes thinks that a bureau of public health could very wisely,
as to efficiency and in extent of public-health service to be given to
the country, be organized as one head having several divisions of dis­
tinctive health administration, each with its sanitary chief, who, by
the way, need not be a commissioned officer of the present Public Health
and Marine-Hospital Service, but who has been selected for his knowl­
edge and experience in a particular or especial line of health work.
And right here the Notes desires to express another thought: That the
public-health service of the country should be a civil function of gov­
ernment administration just as is the customs service or the judicial,
and not one of a military management.
...
., ,
For instance a division ot domestic and maritime sanitation should
embrace all questions of investigation and management of quarantines,
___
.
... ,,
whether on land or by w ater;
A division of general hygiene and sanitation could deal with the
pure-food laws and with inquiries into the causes of disease of man
or animal, epidemics, endemic or sporadic outbreaks, together with the
pollution of streams, and framing regulations preventing the sam e ;
A division of scientific research and experimentation would control
all laboratory investigation of disease in every form which might pre­
sent itself, whether in man or an im al; assisting state boards of health
in the health work of the States academically and financially, and
affording instruction to state and municipal health officers in the na­
tional laboratory at Washington ; and
A division of medical maritime service which would include the
medical assistance to the merchant marine as is now conducted.
Other divisions of public health work could be provided for, and the
scheme can be enlarged as experience and time show the necessity for
additions, but the distinctive feature of the plan should be preserved
by having separate divisions for each special line of work.
Accordingly, instead of creating an entirely new bureau with new
officials and perhaps men untried by experience, the decidedly better
plan as the Notes thinks, is to build upon what the country now has,
and which has been looked upon as the public health department of the
United States, by utilizing its present personnel and its knowledge of
the ability and experience of material to be gathered together from all
over the country, for in the work which it has been prosecuting along
sanitary lines for fifteen or more years the present Public Health
and Marine-Hospital Service has gained by experience alone a vast
amount of knowledge both of conditions, measures, and men which it
would take a bureau newly starting out an equal number of years to
obtain.
.
. „
_ ,
The Notes hopes that the present Congress may be influenced by
President T a ft’s wise suggestion, but desires also that in the formation
of this new bureau of public health that the present Public Health
Service may be merely rearranged or reorganized on the above-outlined
plan.

Mr. GALLINGER. Mr. President, I wish to correct an ob­
servation I made a moment ago, and I want the Senator from
Oklahoma to hear it. I was mistaken as to the text of the bill.
I had read in another document the suggestion that this was
to be a compound department, and that health was to be but
one element of it. I think the Senator’s bill clearly establishes
a department of public health.
Mr. OWEN. Without question.
Mr. GALLINGER. Mr. President, I have just two or three
additional observations to make about this matter.
The Senator from Oklahoma has made a very illuminating
argument, and I have been pleased to listen to him. It is possi­
ble that the Senator’s contention is right and that this ought to
be done, and yet I think it is something we can well pause
and consider very deliberately. We have a bureau called the
Public Health and Marine-Hospital Service, which is officered
by some of the most accomplished medical men of the world, a
bureau that has done very remarkable service. It has taken
cognizance of yellow fever, of the bubonic plague, and of all
the troublesome diseases that have alarmed mankind at differ­
ent stages of the world’s history, and it has been managed with
rare skill and success.
In addition to that, we have, I believe, in every State of the
American Union a state board of health, and if they are all
as efficient as is the state board of health in the little State
which I in part represent here, they are doing very remarkable
work and are not neglecting any of the things that the Senator
from Oklahoma has so eloquently pleaded for.
Mr. President, I have been interested in the Senator’s state­
ment that in some way—he has not told us just how, or how
long a time it is going to take—he is going to make the aver­
age of human life fourteen years longer than it is now. That
is interesting to me and interesting to some of my associates
here, who would like to have it accomplished right off, if it can
be done. I think the average duration of human life is about
thirty years. The Senator from Oklahoma will correct me if
I am wrong.
Mr. OWEN. It varies very much, from twenty-one years in
India to fifty-two years in Sweden. It varies very much, accord­
ing to the care taken in preserving the health, particularly
that of children.

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD
Mr. GALLINGER. Undoubtedly the average of human life
has been increased of late years, but when I was trying to gain
some information of a medical nature I remember that thirty
years was stated as the average of human life. So, instead of
living thirty years the average human being in the United States
is going to live forty-four years. It is a dream, pure and
simple.
Mr. OWEN. The Senator ought not to say it is a dream
without having inspected the data upon which it is founded. I
have given (supra) a table of evei’y class of disease by which
human beings are afflicted, with the percentages made up by
the best experts in the world, as to what can be accomplished as
to each particular one in prolonging life, and show the addition
of these gains altogether makes fourteen years of increased life.
Mr. GALLINGER. And the head of that body of experts is
a professor in a university in the United States, who never
studied medicine a minute in his life.
Mr. OWEN. I f you refer to Professor Fisher, of Yale, he is
a man of wonderful learning, but the tables were prepared by
men among the ablest men in the medical profession.
Mr. GALLINGER. Yes.
Mr. OWEN. The data in this has been brought about by those
who are learned in the science of health, and he has collated the
information and the data of the American world on the ques­
tion of vitality. He is the professor of political economy in
Yale University, and his learning I do not think can be min­
imized.
Mr. GALLINGER. Oh, n o ; not on political economy-----Mr. OWEN. It deals with this question as a matter of vital
statistics.
Mr. GALLINGER. And a good deal of which is probably
false political economy. But very likely his political economy
is right and mine wrong.
Mr. OWEN. I can not refuse my assent to that suggestion.
Mr. GALLINGER. I thank the Senator. Human life has
been extended considerably by existing medical forces in this
country. It no doubt can be still further extended; but that
we are going to add 50 per cent to the average of human life
in this country anywhere within a reasonable time is, to my
mind, more than doubtful, to say the least.
Mr. OWEN. If the Senator will study the Aristocracy of
Health, and if he will consult Horace Fletcher, he will live to
be 150 years old; and no one will rejoice at that more than I.
Mr. GALLINGER. My observation has been that almost
every man in this country who has been a crank on the matter
of correct living has died young. Dio Lewis died young;
Graham died young; and I am not sure but that Horace
Fletcher, who is chewing his food 36 or 38 times before he
swallows it, will die young.
Mr. OWEN. And how does the Senator from New Hamp­
shire feel to-day?
Mr. GALLINGER. I feel very well.
I meant to say in speaking of the Marine-Hospital Service
and the state boards of health that by legislation we have co­
ordinated those medical forces, to use a term with which we are
familiar in this body, and the state boards of health are now
regularly, at stated times, in consultation with the Public
Health and Marine-Hospital Service, looking to the interest of
the public health throughout the length and breadth of our land.
In addition to those forces we have that great fund which
Mr. Carnegie has so generously placed at the disposal of the
scientific people of this country, and his foundation is employ­
ing some of the leading experts in the world in investigating
subjects of public health and the proper remedy for certain
diseases. So the matter is not being neglected.
Mr. President, this subject is an interesting one, but it is a
propaganda that may well be looked into very carefully. The
Senator from Oklahoma speaks of the Committee of One Hun­
dred. I have been invited several times to join the celebrated
Committee of One Hundred, but I did not do it, and hence I am
not a member of it. So I can not speak by the book, but am
merely stating some general facts. The Committee of One Hun­
dred is going to do great things for the health of the people of
the United States. That committee has spent up to the present
time $44,236 in exploiting this particular subject, and it is now
appealing for funds to reimburse it. Professor Fisher, a very
distinguished gentleman and scholar, without any special knowl­
edge of medical subjects, is promoting this propaganda. Pro­
fessor Fisher, under date of the 23d day of December, 1909,
sent out a letter in which he says:
Our legislative subcommittee and executive subcommittee have held
frequent meetings. W e believe that it is not possible to overcome the
opposition unless a campaign fund of from twenty to twenty-five thou­
sand dollars can be raised at once. This will be used for printing, sta­
tionery, telegrams, etc., the effect of which will be that Congressmen,
35540— 8883




13

especially pivotal Congressmen, will not dare to displease their con­
stituents by opposing President T a ft’s programme. It will also be used
to reach our American Health League— which contains many thousand
health enthusiasts— to start up our “ authors’ league ” of 1,000 health
writers, to stimulate our press council of 100 leading editors, and to
supply them and the members generally with ammunition in the way of
literature; also to reach the labor organizations and the grange and all
our allies.

In the same letter Professor Fisher says this:
I am writing to you among the first, knowing that you keenly appre­
ciate the importance of overcoming the selfish opposition to a project
which, once started, will surely expand within a decade so that millions
upon millions of government money will be put into this most needed
form of national defense.
Letters received from Congressmen in re­
sponse to our effort to poll them on this question show that many of
them, and especially those who control procedure, need something more
than the President’s message to urge them to action ; in short, that they
must have letters and telegrams from their constituents.

I am not going to find any special fault with Professor
Fisher for carrying on this propaganda, but I do not want it to
go out to the country that this is a spontaneous movement. It
is calling for the expenditure now of large sums of money, and
the return, according to Professor Fisher’s letter, is to be that
the Government will pour millions upon millions of dollars into
the laps of those people who are to take possession of health
matters in our country in place of the instrumentalities we now
have at our command. It may be all wise, it may be all well,
the Senator from Oklahoma may speak by the book, but I sug­
gest that in view of the facts patent to many members o f the
medical profession who have not yet been converted to the view
the Senator so ably presents, we can afford to pause and very
carefully investigate all the facts bearing on the question.
Mr. OWEN. Mr. President-----The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from New Hamp­
shire yield to the Senator from Oklahoma?
Mr. GALLINGER. I was going to present a conference re­
port. Of course, I yield to the Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. OWEN. It is merely to make a brief answer.
Mr. WARREN. Will the Senator from Oklahoma yield to
me for a moment?
Mr. OWEN. I shall not take over two minutes, and then I
will be off the floor.
I simply wish to say in introducing Senate bill 6049 that I
had no connection whatever with the Committee of One Hun­
dred. I did not know anything about their plans or methods
when I introduced this bill. In fact, they were pursuing a dif­
ferent policy, if I understand it. I can not in two minutes dis­
pose of the suggestions made by the Senator from New Hamp­
shire, but I will do so at a later time, and will answer abun­
dantly the suggestions which he now makes.
I will merely say at this time that my action In introducing
this bill was on my own motion, without consultation with any­
body, except that I had considered this matter for many years,
as I have already explained. I call attention to the fact that
every political party has expressed itself In this behalf; and I
pointed out exactly what their words are; and the American
Medical Association, I understand, for twenty years has been
trying to accomplish some results in this matter.
There is no reason on earth why private citizens interested In
this matter should not take an active interest in it, and the
Committee of One Hundred should not be treated with con­
tumely, and should not be made to appear as carrying on an
offensive or improper propaganda. The American Medical Asso­
ciation nineteen years ago (1891) by a committee—Dr. Jerome
Cochran, chairman—urged this policy of a department of public
health. I f it be a sin to carry on a propaganda to pass more
efficient laws for the protection of human life in this country,
let me be counted a chief among sinners. I should regard it
as discreditable to Congress that any propaganda should be
necessary. Congress should rejoice at this great opportunity
of service pointed out by the Committee of One Hundred. I
shall put into the R ecord the name of each one of the Committee
of One Hundred, with his standing, to see who these “ cranky ”
patriots may be, who sin against the laws of patriotism by ad­
vocating the improved methods of protecting the public health,
and herewith submit the name, occupation, and organization of
the members of the Committee of One Hundred:
CO M M IT T EE OF ONE HUNDRED OF T H E AM ERICAN A S S O C IA T IO N
ADVANCEM ENT OF SCIEN CE ON NA TIO N A L H E A L T H .

FOR T H E

Rev. Lyman Abbott, New York C ity ; Miss Jane Addams, Chicago,
111.; Felix Adler, New York C ity ; James B. Angell, Ann A rb or; Hon.
Joseph II. Choate, New York C ity ; Charles W . Eliot, Cambridge;
Archbishop Ireland, St. P a u l; Hon. Ben. B. Lindsay, D enver; John
Mitchell, Indianapolis; and Dr. W illiam H . Welch, Baltimore, vicepresidents.
Irving Fisher, president; Edward T. Devine, secretary; Title Guar­
antee and Trust Company, treasurer, 176 Broadway, New York City,
executive officers.

14

CONGRESSIONAL’ RECORD.
C O M M IT T E E OF ONE HUNDRED.

Dr. A. C. Abbott, M. D., assistant health officer of the city of Phil­
adelphia, P a .; president board of h ealth ; professor of hygiene, Philadel­
phia, Pa.
Rev. Lyman Abbott, editor Outlook, New York City.
Samuel Hopkins Adams, author. New York City.
Miss Jane Addams, philanthropist, Hull House, Chicago, 111.
Felix Adler, professor of Hebrew, Columbia University ; established
New York Society for Study of Ethical Culture, New York City, N. Y.
W illiam H. Allen, Ph. D., director bureau of municipal research;
social worker ; author of Health and Efficiency, New York City.
'President James B. Angell, president emeritus University of Michi­
gan : diplom atist; Regent Sm ithsonian; ex-United States minister to
C h in a ; Ann Arbor, Mich.
Ur. Hermann Biggs, chief medical officer, health department, New
York City ; professor University and Bellevue Hospital Medical College,
New York City.
Dr. Frank Billings, leading physician of Chicago, 111., professor Rush
Medical College, ex-president American Medical Association. Chicago,

111.

John Shaw Billings, librarian public libraries. New York Citv, profes­
sor of hygiene, University of Pennsylvania, census expert vitality statis­
tics, New York City.
Miss Mabel T. Boardman, president American Red Cross, W ashing­
ton. D. C.

Bishop C. H. Brent, bishop Philippine Islands, Manila, P. I.
Dr. Joseph D. Bryant, ex-health commissioner New York City, ex­
president American Medical Association, private physician to Grover
Cleveland, New York City.
Luther Burbank, expert on plant life, Santa Rosa, Cal.
Andrew Carnegie, ironmaster and philanthropist, New York City.
Prof. James McKean Cattel, editor Science and Popular Science, pro­
fessor of psychology, Columbia University, New York City.
Prof. R. H. Chittenden, Ph. D., LL. D ., director, Sheffield Scientific
School, Yale University, referee board, department of agriculture, New
Haven, Conn.
.
,
, ^
,
.
Hon. Joseph H. Choate, lawyer, diplomat, ex-ambassador to England,
New York City, N. Yr.
Dr. Thomas D. Coleman, A . M., M. D., distinguished physician,
Augusta, Ga.
Prof. John R. Commons, professor of political economy, University of
Wisconsin, authority on labor legislation, Madison, W is.
Dr. Thomas Darlington, ex-commissioner and president board of
health, ex-president of the American Climatological Society, New York
City.
Edward T. Devine, editor of the Survey, professor of Columbia Uni­
versity, New York City.
Mrs. Melvil Dewey, president Association of Home Economics, Lake
Placid, N. Y'.
Dr. A. H. Doty, quarantine officer State of New York, New York City,
N. Y.
Thomas A. Edison, inventor electric light, phonograph, etc., Orange, N.J.
Charles W . Eliot, president, emeritus, Harvard University, Boston,
Mass.
Rev. W . G. Eliot, Jr., prominent clergyman, Portland, Oreg.
Dr. Livingston Farrand, executive secretary of the American Society
for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis, New Y'ork City. N. Y.
Hon. Charles J. Faulkner, ex-United States Senator from W est Vir­
ginia, Washington, D. C.
Dr. Ilenry B. Favill, physician, president Municipal Voters’ League,
professor of Rush Medical College, Chicago, 111.
Dr. George J. Fisher, head of the directors of the Young Men's Chris­
tian Association, New York City.
Prof. Irving Fisher, president, professor of political economy, New
Haven, Conn.
Horace Fletcher, author on the science of living, New York City.
Austin G. Fox, distinguished attorney, New York City.
Lee Frankel, head of the welfare department of the Metropolitan
Life Insurance Company, New York City.
Dr. John S. Fulton, secretary of the International Congress of H y­
giene Demography; to be held in Washington at the invitation of the
United States Government, Washington, D. C.
President H. A . Garfield, president of W illiam s College, W illiam stown. Mass.
W illiam R. George, George Junior Republic, where the boys are
taught self-government, Freeville, N. Y.
Prof. Franklin H . Giddings, professor sociology, Columbia University,
New Y'ork City.
E. R. L. Gould. Ph. D., president City and Suburban Homes Com­
pany, New York City.
Rev. Percy S. Grant, clergyman, New York City.
Dr. Luther H. Gulick, educator, president American Physical Educa­
tion Association, author, New York City.
President A. T. Hadley, president Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
President G. Stanley Hail, president Clark University, ttMthosRry -on
adolescence, Worcester, Mass.
Miss Hazard, president Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass.
Prof. C. R. Henderson, professor sociology, University of Chicago,
Chicago, 111.
Mrs. John B. Henderson, author of Aristocracy of Health, Washing­
ton. D. C.
Byron W . Holt, New York Refojrm Club, New York City.
Prof. L. Emmet Holt, secretary of the Rockefeller Institute, authority
care and feeding of children, diseases of infancy, etc, New York City.
Dr. J. N. Hurty, secretary state board of health, ex-president Ameri­
can Public Health Association, Indianapolis, Ind.
Right Rev. John Ireland, archbishop, St. Paul, Minn.
Prof. M. E. Jaffa, professor, University of California, chemist and
expert on foods, Berkeley, Cal.
Jeremiah W . Jenks, professor of political economy, Cornell Univer­
sity, ex-government expert, Ithaca, N. Y.
Dr. P. M. Jones, editor State Medical Journal, San Francisco, Cal.
President David Starr Jordan, president Leland Stanford University,
California.
Prof. Edwin O. Jordan, professor bacteriology, University of Chicago,
Chicago, 111.

35546— 8883




Dr. J. H . Kellogg, superintendent, Battle Creek Sanitarium, Battle
Creek, Mich.
Prof. S. A. Knopf, author and leading authority on tuberculosis, New
York City.
Dr. George M. Kober, dean Georgetown Medical College, professor of
hygmne, chairman of the President’s Home Commission, Washington,
James Law, professor of veterinary medicine, Cornell U niversity; exchairman United States Cattle Commission, etc., Ithaca, N. Y.
Samuel McCune Lindsay, director New York School of Philanthropy,
New York City.
Hon. Ben II. Lindsay, Judge Juvenile court, Denver, Colo.
Berkeley ^Cal
P1‘° :fessor ° f physiology, University of California,
f °S ' fejJS D ' L T ? > ex-Secretary of the Navy, Boston. Mass.
S. S. McClure, editor of McClure s Magazine. New York Citv.
Bowling GreenC^KymaC^’ *ec*urer ° * t *le American Medical A s s o c i a t i o n ,
Hiram J. Messenger, actuary of the Travelers’ Life Insurance Com­
pany, Hartford, Conn.
John Mitchell, labor leader, New York City.
Dr. Prince A. Morrow, president of the Society for Sanitary and
Moral Prophylaxis, New York City.
Dr. Richard C. Newton, writer, Montclair, N. J.
Prof. M. V. O’ Shea, professor of science and art of education, Uni­
versity of Wisconsin, Madison, W is.
W alter II. Page, editor W orld’s Work, New York City.
Robert Treat Paine, president American Peace Society, Boston, Mass.
Henry Phipps, philanthropist. New York City.
Dr. C. O. Probst, secretary State Board of Health, Ohio, and presi­
dent of the American Public Health Association, Columbus, Ohio.
Dr. Charles A. L. Reed, chairman of the legislative committee of the
American Medical Association, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Mrs. Ellen H. Richards, sanitary chemist. Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, author on the A rt of Right Living, Boston, Mass.
Prof. F. C. Robinson, professor, Bowdoin College, ex-president Ameri­
can Public Health Association, Brunswick, Me.
Dr. D. A. Sargent, director of the Harvard gymnasium, Cambridge,
Mass.
W illiam II. Schicffelin, wholesale druggist, New York City.
Prof. Henry R. Seager, professor of political economy, Columbia Uni­
versity, New York.
Hon. George Shiras, 3d, distinguished attorney at law, ex-member
of Congress, Washington, D. C.
Dr. George H. Simmons, editor Journal American Medical Associa­
tion, Chicago, 111.
W jlliam F. Slocum, president Colorado College, Colorado Springs,
Colo.
Dr. Charles D. Smith, ex-president state board of health of Maine,
Portland, Me.
James Sprunt, cotton exporter, W ilmington, N. C.
Melville E. Stone, director of Associated Press, New York.
Nathan Straus, philanthropist, in respect to public baths and purify­
ing the milk supply of New York City, New York City, N. Y.
J. E. Sullivan, president Amateur Athletic Union, New Y’ ork City.
W illiam H. Tolman, author, director of the Museum of Safety and
Sanitation, New York City.
Dr. Henry P. W alcott, president of the Massachusetts state board
of health and president International Hygiene Demography, Boston,
Mass.
Dr. W illiam H . Welch, president-elect of the American Medical Asso­
ciation, professor of pathology, Johns-Hopkins University, etc., presi­
dent of the advisory board of hygienic laboratory, Marine-Hospital Serv­
ice. Baltimore, Md.
Prof. F. F. Wesbrook, dean of the medical school, University of
Minnesota, and member of the advisory board, Minneapolis, Minn.
Talcott W illiam s, editor and author, Philadelphia, Pa.
Robert S. Woodward, director of the Carnegie Institute, Washington,
D. C.
Calvin Hendrick, sanitary engineer, Baltimore, Md.
[S. 6049, Sixty-first Congress, second session.]
In the Senate
the United States. February
Mr.
wen
introduced the following bill, which was read twice and referred to the
Committee on Public Health and National Q uarantine:

of

1, 1910.

O

A bill establishing a department of public health, and for other purposes.
B e it enacted, etc., That there is hereby established a department of
public health under the supervision of the secretary of public health,
who shall be appointed by the President a Cabinet officer, by and with
the consent of the Senate, at a salary of $12,000 per annum, with like
tenure of office of other Cabinet officers.
Sec . 2. That all departments and bureaus belonging to any depart­
ment, excepting the Department of War and the Department of the Navy,
affecting the medical, surgical, biological, or sanitary service; or any
questions relative thereto, shall be combined in one department, to be
known as the department of public health, particularly including
therein the Bnrenn of Public Health and Marine-Hospital Service, the
medical officers of the Revenue-Cutter Service, the medical referee, the
assistant medical referee, the surgeons and examiners of the Pension
Office; all physicians and medical officers in the service of the Indian
Bureau or the Department of the Interior at old soldiers’ homes, at
the Government Hospital for the Insane, and the Freedman’s Hospital
and other hospitals of the United States ; the Bureau of Entomology,
the Bureau of Chemistry and of Animal Industry of the Department
of Agriculture; the hospitals of the Immigration Bureau of the Depart­
ment of Commerce and L ab or; the emergency relief in the Government
Printing Office, and every other agency of the United States for the pro­
tection of the health of the people of the United States, or of animal
life, be, and are hereby transferred to the department of public health,
which shall hereafter exercise exclusive Jurisdiction and supervision
thereof.
ec
That the official records, papers, furniture, fixtures, and all
matters, all property of any kind or description pertaining to the busi­
ness of any such bureau, office, department, or branch of the public
service is hereby transferred to the department of public health.
ec 4. That the secretary of public health shall have supervision
over the department of public health, and shall be assisted by an as­
sistant secretary of public health, to be appointed by the President, by

S . 3.
S .

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD
and with the advice and consent of the Senate, at a salary of $6,000 a
year, with such duties as shall he prescribed by the secretary not in­
consistent with law.
.
,
S e c . 5. That the secretary of public health shall be authorized to
appoint such subordinates as may be found necessary. There shall
bfe a chief clerk appointed, at a salary not to exceed $3,000 a year, and
such other clerks as may from time to time be authorized by Congress.
S e c . 6 . That the officers and employees of the public service trans­
ferred to the department of public health shall, subject to further action
by Congress, receive the salaries and allowances now provided by law.
" S ec . 7. That it shall be the duty and province of such department
of public health to supervise all matters within the control of the
Federal Government relating to the public health and to diseases of
animal life.
S ec . S. That it shall gather data concerning such m atters; impose
and enforce quarantine regulations ; establish chemical, biological, and
other standards necessary to the efficient administration of said de­
partment : and give due publicity to the same.
S e c . 9. That the secretary of public health shall establish a bureau
of biology, a bureau of chemistry, a bureau of veterinary service, a
bureau of sanitary engineering, reporting such proposed organizations
to Congress for suitable legislation relative thereto.
Sec . 10. That all unexpended appropriations and appropriations made
for the ensuing year shall be available on and after July 1, 1910, for
the department of public health, where such appropriations have been
made to be used by any branch of the public service transferred by this
act to the department of public. health. It shall be the duty of the
secretary of public health to provide, on proper requisition, any med­
ical, sanitary, or other service needed of his department required in
another department of the Government.
Sec . 11. That any other department requiring medical, surgical, sani­
tary, or other similar service shall apply to the secretary of public
hea'lth therefor wherever it is practicable.
Sec . 12. That all officers or employees of the Government transferred
by this act to the department of public health will continue to dis­
charge their present duties under the present organization until July 1,
1910, and after that time until otherwise directed by the secretary of
public health or under the operation of law.
S ec . 13. That all laws or parts of laws in conflict with this act are
hereby repealed.

W ed n esd a y, M a y 25, 1010.

Mr. OWEN. Mr. President, while awaiting the return of the
Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. La F ollette ] I wish to make a
few comments on the bill (S. 6049) establishing a department
of public health, and for other purposes.
Mr. President, I have been amazed, and I suppose that every
Senator on this floor has been, to receive many telegrams from
“ homeopaths,” “ osteopaths,” “ eclectics,” “ chiropractics,” and
practitioners and believers in Christian Science and suggestive
therapeutics, and from other good citizens, protesting against
a department of public health apparently upon the unfounded
notion that the bill introduced by me (S. 6049) proposed or
made possible some interference by the Federal Government
with the practice of medicine and constituted a possible invasion
of the medical freedom of the citizen to employ whom he
pleased when sick. None of the protests point out the language
of the bill by which this could possibly happen, and for the ob­
vious reason that no such language exists in the bill. None of
these protests suggest any amendment to correct either an error
of omission or commission in the bill. They simply protest
against an interference with the medical freedom of the citizen,
with which the bill contemplates no interference, with which the
Federal statutes can not interfere within any State.
I understand that during the last week a large number o f
so-called “ taxpayers and voters’ ” associations have been or­
ganized with many members in several States of the Union for
the purpose of opposing a department of public health.
1 am informed that the sudden and surprising interest of the
“ taxpayers and voters ” of the United States who are or­
ganized in this artificial manner and the active interest alleged
or manifested of the “ homeopaths ” and of the “ osteopaths ”
and of the “ eclectics ” and of the great variety of those who
have special views with regard to the various methods of heal­
ing the sick has taken place within seven days, and like a
flash of lightning telegrams are coming in from Maine to Cali­
fornia. The chairman of the Committee on Public Health and
National Quarantine of the Senate received a very large number
of them. Such sudden universality of disapproval o f a depart­
ment of public health on such an unsound theory is astounding;
it is more— it is extremely suspicious; it is obviously artificial.
It is perfectly apparent that somebody is spending a very
large amount of money on this sudden jiropaganda; it can
hardly be doubted that somebody, in gross errQr, is advising
the “ homeopaths,” the “ osteopaths,” the “ eclectics ” that their
right to practice medicine is about to be invaded by the Federal
Government.
The agency through which this propaganda is being carried
on against a department of public health is carrying the flag
of “ medical freedom.”




35546— 8883 *

15

And an active and authorized representative of this organiza­
tion in the Washington Post is quoted as saying (Friday morn­
ing, May 20, 1910) :
I believe the creation of a Federal department of health would mean
the abridgment of long-cherished rights of the people, which would
mean the taking away of the enjoyment of one of the most sacred rights
for which man has had to contend— the right to select the practitioner
of his choice in the hour of sickness. If such a bill became law, hun­
dreds of practitioners would be thrown out of practice— men who have
succeeded in curing persons who have been given up by physicians. It
would particularly affect Christian Science healers and osteopaths. In
their line, both these classes of practitioners undoubtedly have done a
World of good, and they should not by unfair legislation be outlawed.
It should make no difference whether we believe in Christian Science,
osteopathy, or any other practice, the people should have the privilege
of choosing their own practitioners.
They should not be prohibited
from so doing by legislation.

This is an astonishing and utterly impossible interpretation
of the bill which I introduced in the Senate of the United States
proposing a department of public health.
The bill itself merely brings the various bureaus affecting the
public health in one body, under one head, without changing
the character o f the activities or authorities of such existing
bureaus, to wit:
A ll departments and bureaus belonging to any department (excepting
the Army and Navy) affecting the medical, surgical, biological, or sani­
tary service, or any questions relative thereto, shall be combined in one
department.

The greatest of these bureaus dealing with the public health
is the Bureau of Public Health and Marine-Hospital Service,
but various public hospitals, the Bureau of Chemistry and of
Pure Foods and Drugs, and Bureau of Meat Inspection, including
some 16 laboratories of the Federal Government, are to be
transferred to one department by this proposed bill.
Nobody has heretofore protested against the existence of
these bureaus or their functions.
Nobody has declared them unconstitutional.
Nobody has charged that they in anywise have interfered
with the homeopaths, osteopaths, eclectics, Christian Scientists,
or any other school of healing.
Nobody has contended that they would do so, or has desired
that they should be abolished for fear that they would interfere
with the local practitioners in the gentle art of healing.
No man who has any knowledge of constitutional law would
believe it possible that the Federal Government could invade
the police powers of the State, or in any way interfere with the
liberties of the citizen or of the local practitioner.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly passed upon this question,
and held that the States, under their police powers, exclusively
control such matters. All lawyers are familiar with these prin­
ciples. The leading cases I insert in the R e c o r d for the con­
venience of those who may not be familiar with the matter:
United States v.
W all., 36) : United
Cruikshank (92 U.
Rights case (19 U.

De W itt (9 'Wall., 41) ; Slaughterhouse cases (16
States v. Reese (92 U. S., 214) ; United States v.
S., 542) ; Munn v. Illinois (94 U. S., 113) ; Civil
S., 3 ) .

All citizens know that the States exclusively control the issu­
ance of licenses to practice medicine.
Nobody every heard of the Federal Government considering
such a matter or pretending to have any interest in it.
Every Member of the Senate and of the House of Representa­
tives knows that the Federal Government has nothing to do
with the local practitioner nor the hostilities which may exist
between different schools of medicine, if any such do exist.
I wish, however, to put in the R ecord my assurances to the
members of the medical profession, of whatever school of heal­
ing, a few facts which I trust may abate any apprehension on
this score.
First. Senate bill 6049, proposing a department of public
health, was drawn by me without the knowledge of any school
of medicine or of any medical association. I was greatly
pleased to find that many members of the various medical
schools and associations, including homeopaths and eclectics,
approved the bill.
I have been pleased to observe the wholesale cordial support
of osteopaths and men of all schools of healing for a department
of public health. The bill contains no provision either directly
or indirectly interfering with any school of healing, whether
osteopaths, 'homeopaths, eclectics, Christian Scientists, or in
those who reject all medicine. It could not accomplish such a
purpose if it had the intent, as the Federal Government has no
such police powers within the State, the States alone issuing
licenses to control the practice of medicine and religious and
personal freedom being a constitutional right in which every­
body believes.

16

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD

As the author of this bill I wish to say that I believe the
more a man knows about the laws of health the less drugs
he takes. I have employed homeopaths and osteopaths and
allopaths as well to treat myself and the members of my fam­
ily. I have studied the doctrine of suggestive therepeutics and
of Christian Science with great interest and respect, and cor­
dially indorse Horace Fletcher as the best doctor of them all.
I stand firmly for medical freedom and for the right of the
citizen to select his own medical or spiritual adviser.
The department of health, proposed by me, has for its ob­
ject the prevention of sickness, and, therefore, taking business
away from all doctors.
The members of the profession whose hearts are constantly
wrung by the grief and sorrow at the bedside of sickness and
death naturally desire to prevent bad health and illness, even
if it be to their financial loss, as it evidently is, and every
member of the noblest of professions will stand for the de­
partment of health when its purposes and its constitutional
limitations are well understood.
The absurd theory that any medical association could, by
any possibility, take charge of the health activities o f the Gov-

eminent of the United States and interfere with the medical
freedom either of citizen or practitioner is preposterous.
It is to the honor of all the members of this sympathetic and
self-sacrificing profession that they are so largely interested in
preventing disease and thus diminishing the need for their own
employment. All disciples of every school of healing, I should
think, should engage in a generous rivalry to put an end to
disease and prevent tuberculosis, typhoid and fellow fevers,
bubonic plague, pneumonia, and the many diseases which are
known to be preventable.
This is about all a department of health can hope to assist
in, and it can only do this by cooperating with the States
on constitutional lines in educating the people on the ele­
mentary laws of health and well-ascertained facts relating to
the prevention of the wholesale sickness and death of our
people.
It is beyond belief that any of our good citizens engaged in
curing the sick would seriously oppose the reasonable exercise
of either the State or National activities within their constitu­
tional limits for the prevention of the illness and death of our
people.

35546— 8883 *




o