ELBERT D. THOMAS, UTAH. CHAIRMAN

JAMES E. MURRAY, MONT.     ROBERT A. TAFT. OHIO
CLAUDE PEPPER. FLA. GEORGE D. AlKEN VT.
LISTER HILL, ALA.         H. ALEXANDER SMITH, N
MATTHEW M. NEELY, W. VI.    WAYNE MORSE. OREG.
PAUL H. DOUGLAS. ILL.       FORREST 0. WUUELL. MO.
HUBERT H. HUMPHREY, MINN.
GARREIT L. WITHERS. KY.

EARL B. WIXCEY. WERK

    COMMITTEE ON
LABOR AND PUBLIC WELFARE

Vrso Albert D, Lasker
Claridges
London, England

Dear Mary:

     As you know by now, we not only gQt out to
the floor but we have succeeded in actually passing
the Aid to Medical Education bill, the Siurvey of Sick-
ness bill, and a third bill in which we cornbined the
Arthritis and Rheumatism hlll with your other measure
29 make unifom the composition of aflaTvTZoYy- counCils.
In each case, Senator Pe3per did a magnificent job of
handling the situation on the floor.

     I am p-etty sure that there always wou1.l have
been at least one objection to the passage of the medical
education bill on the consent calendar. That is why vc
'had asked Anna Rosenberg to call your White House and
Democratic Committee contacts ir. your name to help in
getting the measure on the must list for floor debate
before adjournment. The Senator and I, of cocrse, did
a lot of calling ourselveg and Senator PepFer took it
up with the Policy Committee, Subsequently Senator
Lucas and the Dolicy Cormittee announced pnblicly that
the bill. would be scheduled for full floor debate.
This made it possibls for Senator Pepper to take advan-
tage of an opportunity presented by an unexpected lull
in the debate on nilitary aid, He rlloved in fast and,
with relatively few Senators present, got unar.inous
consent to make the education bill the pending order of
business and then explained it so persuasively and l~irlly
that the bill was passed by e voice vote and without
anyone objecting.

      1 a2n enclosing copies of all three bills Rnd
of the reports that were submitted to the Senate along
with them. i3y now, I think you know the full story of
the changes made in the Institutes bill and the reasone
therefor. In each case, Norman assured. me that, in view
of the circumatances, the changes wo-ald be perfectly
acceptable to you, I myself am quite sure that if we
had held out for any more the bill might not hsve come

Mrs. Albert T). Lasker -2 - September 2f!, 1949

out from the Cozr!mittee, and certe€nlv would not have
passed the Senate +his session. Rill Reidy and I can
thlnk of only one other thing which you mi@t hsve wanted
irlcluded in the bill -- a provision givinz the councils
greater authority. Iiowever, I understand that you herl
agreed to accept, for the present at 19ast, Senator
Pepper's S. 2272 making all the Councils uniform in
coraposition and not extending their poyerso we did
succeed in incorporating that in tom the Institutes
bill. I am sure that any attempt to go farther would
not only have blocked the bill in the Senate but would
have meant administration disapproval, In any case, if
the House goes along with us and we get the Institutes
set up wlth unlforrn Council s the next step should be
fairly simple, I am sure in my own mind that you would
not have wented us to risk creation of the new institutes
because of this issue*

Like the Institutes bill, the Survey of Sickness

bill came out of .Conmittee sponsored by all thirteen
members of the Committee, This assured its passageo It
also accounts for the fact that the bill does not provl&
for en imediate survey but rather for a study of and 8
report on the methods which might be used in making such
a surv9y. &%en the original bill was taken up, Senator
?aft's opposition wns quite extreme. He seemed convinced
that the bill's real objective irmolved. the cornpilation
and dissemination of pro2figanda for health insuranceo
His attitude wa8 such that I am sure that the bill would
Rot even have gotten o=lt of Committee. Fortunetely, by
shiftins the discussion to methods of making the surveys,
we got the gentleman so interested in this more technical
problem that he was not only willing to support the study
of methods but did not seem to notice that the bill cornmits
the Congress to making periodic surveys, You will be glad
to know In end this is ,iust between ourselves -9 that
Perrott of the Public Health Service assimes us that he
will do the same thing under this bill as he would have
done under the origtnal bill. In short, in studying metholls
of making surveys, he will actually corrduct sample surveys,
the results of which will be available to US. Moreover,
1: am sure that after his report is in we will be able to
U set much much larzer appropriations with which to conduct
really worth-while surveys than wolild otherwise have been
 OS Si bles

      fill in all I am very happy with the results to
date. X'e have not only gotten a great deal more out of
Conmittee than I had dared hope for but each bill has come
out with unanlrllous support and ve have actually had them
passedo

Mrs. Albert D. Lasker -3- September 28, 1949

I think what has happened so far proves the

wisdom of our policy of talking and talking and talking,
bargaining back and forth, and taking whe tever time
night be requlred in unspectacular Covmittee work to get;
broad bypartisan support of our bills instead of just
usi~g our voting power to report out measures which
would be bitterly opposed on the floora

      Now it is up to the Houseo In view of the
brief time left befme adjournment, and knowing that the
House will, in all probability, not get through with
what we have alrecdy sent over, we are not going to try
to get any more measures through our Committee tkis
sessiono Instead, I think we wfll attempt to reintroduce
the Senate Fiesolution put through during the 80th Congress
by Senators Taft, Donne11 and Ball, granting funds to
the Subcommittee on Health and authorization to conduct
investigetions and to make reports during the period of
adjournment, If we succeed in this, it will give us
what we need in order to prepare and distribute the
report on health insurance which was discussed at your
lsst Washington dinner.

I have only had time for =i mtnutets conversation

wi%h 8nd.y Bicmiller since his return. His description of
his pleasant luncheon with you both in Paris left me
envious. It also seem to hgve filled Andy with a deter-
mi~ation to do everything possible to force his Comittee
to act on our bills. I don't know how good his chances
are oince the entire Congress seems to be pretty well fed
up and mxious to get hoae. Perheps, hcmever, yoxi will
be back in time to take hold of the boys over there and
see to it that they stay on the job at least lmg enough
to ca%ch up with the Senateo

Hoping that you and Mro Lasker have had a

pleasant v%cation, and looking forward to seeing you both
very soon, I x%emain, with warm regar4s,

Sincerely,

v

Charles A, Murray