Democratic Senator and later Congressman Claude Pepper of Florida was one of Lasker's first and most important allies in Congress. In the summer of 1945, Mary and her husband prevailed upon Pepper, a friend from Florida vacations, to hold hearings in pursuit of larger appropriations for research on cancer, mental health, and aging. The hearings not only presaged Mary Lasker and Florence Mahoney's research interests over the next four decades, but set a pattern for their congressional lobbying. Through her connection to the Miami Daily News and the Cox newspaper chain, Florence secured editorial endorsements in Pepper's home state of Florida. Mary made campaign contributions to Pepper and supplied him with statistics on diseases that caused the greatest mortality. She suggested that Pepper recite these statistics, have expert witnesses (supplied by Lasker) testify to the need for more medical research--the first such testimony in Congress--then put government officials on the spot by asking them how much money their departments were spending on these diseases, and why they were not asking for more. Hearings orchestrated by Lasker over the next two decades would follow this same pattern.
Number of Image Pages:
2 (111,300 Bytes)
Date:
1948-04-01 (April 1, 1948)
Creator:
Lasker, Mary
Recipient:
Pepper, Claude
United States Senate
Source:
Original Repository: Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Mary Lasker Papers
Rights:
Reproduced with permission of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation.
Exhibit Category:
Mary Lasker and the Growth of the National Institutes of Health
