tee and the Congress. It is to pursue the present methods as currently in use by the American Cancer Society, a voluntary agency. This organization last year raised $4,000,000. Of this, approximately $800,000 has been set aside for cancer research nationally. In its present campaign for $12,000,000 of voluntary contributions it will set aside $3,000,000 for cancer research nationally. At that rate it would take over 33 yearse to set aside and accumulate the necessary $100,000,000 research fund. And during each and every one of those 33 years at least 175,000 Americans will die of cancer. Will you make a decision that will thus send 6,000,000 people to their grave? I make a point of this because it is the background of the thinking I have lived with for the past 9 years, seeing "too little being done for only a few and always too late." Cancer is a national emergency-a governmental responsibilityCongress' challenge-this committee's opportunity. The Nation's citizens have banded together as "sponsors of Government action against cancer," and have sought the introduction and now the passage of this, the only visible means to a positive end, the Pepper-Neely cancer research bill. We have been splitting atoms for years, but it took the Manhattan project, a mobilization of the world's greatest scientists in one coordinated effort, to produce the atom bomb. Can anyone doubt that the same kind of attention might not save the lives of the millions who will die of cancer in our lifetime? The good that will come from atom research will be made available to the whole world. Equal or greater good will come from a work that seeks the means for saving mankind, all the world's people from the terrors of death by cancer. What is $100,000,000 in relation to the lives of 17,000,000 Americans in just one lifetime and countless millions throughout the world who will surely die if this puzzle of cancer is not solved? It is less than $6 per life. It represents a cost, for one tax year only, of less than 60 cents per person in the United States. What a small sum to spend to save so many and what a dreadful thing it is to think that some legislators might vote against it. This is not political. It is just plain humanitarian. I speak with such feeling because I watched my mother and father both die of this terrifying disease. I have been fighting and begging for a cure to be found ever since. I have been trying to find hospitals to set aside beds for men, women, and children who were in advanced stages of this disease, who had no place to go to die, except at home in the presence of those who loved them and could merely look on with hopelessness and a heart-breaking sense of the futility of their poor efforts to ease pain or to bring comfort, to say nothing of the loss to science from being unable to treat and care for and record the case histories of these patients in their final stages, thus perhaps allowing cancer to take to the grave with it the possible cause and cure. I want the Pepper-Neely bill to pass at this session of Congress. I have worked as hard as a private citizen could for it. Many men and women of prominence and good will have joined me and endorse what I have said here. I beg the privilege of submitting some of their names for the record. These names represent a mere sampling of opinion on my part a very confined effort, I admit. But here is the result of a Gallup poll which I beg also to submit for the guidance of this committee and the Congress who will soon vote on this bill. Here is a mass expression of public opinion-nearly 90 percent in favor of this action, even if they were called upon to pay additional taxes for this purpose. Well, who wouldn't be for anything that can humanly be done? The scientists, doctors, and leaders are available, the knowledge-know-how, experience, and case histories are sufficient. What is needed is coordination, leadership, authority, and the necessary funds to permit long-range planning and assurance of continuity. This you are being asked to provide through the enactment of this bill. I trust you, too, will favor and act on it in accordance with these, my summary views: 1. I favor Government action against cancer. 2. I favor the quick and favorable enactment of S. 1875 in its present simple form; during this session of Congress. 3. I am unequivocally in favor of the $100,000,000 appropriation as an absolute and unrestricted minimum fund for this purpose to be set aside until spent. 4. I advocate that the President of the United States appoint a new and independent commission to program, plan, and carry out the considered integrated cancer research project called for in this bill. 5. I urge only that such a commission consist of a cross section of scientists, doctors, and lay leaders of all groups truly representative of all types of thinking to implement a new and broader approach to this problem than has ever been undertaken or blueprinted heretofore. 6. I urge that no clique, particular group, society, laboratory, or university, be permitted to control exclusively the intent or purposes herein sought to be accomplished. Such a commission should be charged with the responsibility to survey, assay, and judge the merits of a plan, idea, or project and make or refuse appropriations therefor. The adoption of the Pepper-Neely bill is nothing for which anyone should need to plead. It just makes common sense. Finally, I wish to go on record with the fact that on behalf of Sponsors of Government Action Government Action Against Cancer I recom mended to the International Health Council of the United Nations that the respective delegates each request of their respective governments such similar government action against cancer. Thus we suggest will be created the greatest massing of funds, facilities, and knowledge the world has ever seen gathered to combat the greatest evil of peacetime-cancer. I am happy to record that I have received an acknowledgment of this recommendation from the United Nations and assurances that this will receive the attention and action of the delegates and the International Health Conference as such. America thus leads the way once again in a new aspect of peace. Peace through war on man's major disease-cancer. This committee must declare this war by enacting this bill. I ask at this time for permission to submit as further support of this bill the complete record of all of the testimony submitted to the Foreign Affairs Committee hearing No. 4502, of May 7, 8, 1946. Also a copy of the Gallup poll, a copy of a list of some of the members of Sponsors of Government Action Against Cancer, letters and telegrams sent to us to be included in the record. Also, an official statement on behalf of the National Citizens Committee, Sponsors of Government Action Against Cancer. For some of the members of our organization see testimony at hearings on H. R. 4502. Senator PEPPER. We will be glad to have for the record all the material which you have suggested except the hearings before the House committee. They are already published and are available. (The documents referred to and submitted by the witness are as follows:) OFFICIAL STATEMENT OF SPONSORS OF GOVERNMENT ACTION AGAINST CANCER, GRIFFIN BUILDING, NEW YORK 13, N. Y. These are the official and unanimous views of our organization on the intent and purposes of this bill for which we have been actively engaged in initiating public interest and support. 1. We favor Government action against cancer. 2. We favor quick and favorable action by the Congress, during this session, on bill S. 1875. 3. We favor the appropriation requested in the said bill, namely, a one hundred million dollar fund for this purpose, to be set up as a capital fund until spent. 4. We favor the intent, inherent in the proposal, that the President have full, complete discretionary privileges to convene world scientists and leaders, to plan, program, and carry out an all-out attack en our Nation's and the world's greatest peacetime killer-cancer. 5. We favor enactment of bill, S. 1975, in its exact present language, without any amend or interpreting language. We desire that the bill clearly, si ply, and completely convey unrestricted authority to the President of the United States, so that he can proceed in whatever way he and any selected group of advisers he may use, deem necessary to undertake, for the first time in our country and in the world, those steps that may be aimed at defeating this great curse of humanity. We feel that the very simplicity of the bill will and should avoid political debate, issues, proposals, and counter-proposals which might tend to emasculate the bill and its intended purposes or otherwise result in failure to report it out or hamper the necessary quick, decisive action to assure favorable and unani nous enactment of this bill for the benefit of the people during this session of Congress. We know that the President will not endeavor personally to detail the program necessary to carry out the intent of this bill. We feel that he will appoint a commission or an administrator to program the necessary plans. We feel therefore that no amendments be made to the bill as originally presented, which would have as its purpose the directing or designating of how or who shall be employed by the President for this purpose. We feel strongly that such amendments, no matter how simple, will hamper the program as we see it and as we know the President of the United States, as leader of, and concerned with, the welfare of the people, sees it. We urge again that no language be inserted into the bill which would tend to afect the free and complete opportunity for the President to exercise his judgment in approaching the seeking of a solution to this international problem. We believe the greatest good can come out of this proposed endeavor to conquer cancer only by the enactment of the bill as it was originally written. We are opposed to any and all proposals submitted to make this undertaking a part of any presently existing Government agency or department. We are opposed to any and all proposals submitted that the bill contain a specific commission set-up or a commission specifically set up which would make it mandatory for the President to pursue this undertaking according to any 89471-46 blueprint included in the bill or able to be spelled out as the only way the President shall or shall not do this. Finally we are unalterably opposed to the 14-man commission as proposed by the three groups who in the first instance, at the time of the House of Representatives hearings on the original bill, H. R. 4502, as submitted by Congressinan Matthew M. Neely, of West Virginia, were individually opposed to the very method of handling this problem that they are now jointly advocating. We feel this would narrow any present or future undertaking inherent in this bill to the same type of limited thinking, research, and planning that has too long been prevalent where the cancer problem of this Nation has been concerned. Primarily, we oppose this type of commission set-up for the above reasons; but principally we oppose it on the same grounds we would also oppose any specific proposal from being written into the bill as a directive or method which must be followed by the President. However, we propose that if the Congress in its considered wisdom should feel the necessity for specifying an administrative blueprint, then, and then only, do we propose that the following be included in preference to any other proposal for the reasons that it would at least implement and not obstruct the President in this great and necessary undertaking. (A) That the administration of this fund and the planning of a program as is intended by S. 1875 be carried out by one administrator who shall be appointed by and shall be accountable only to the President of the United States. (B) That the administrator may appoint, in cooperation with and subject to the approval of the President, such a board of trustees consisting of scientists and lay leaders as he shall deem to be necessary and incidental to the carrying out of the intent of the bill. (C) That the President and/or the administrator shall have the authority to correlate and coordinate all present Government and private cancer research activities and shall have the authority to call upon or otherwise supplement or implement the existing Government departments and agencies now doing cancer research work. If the appointment of a single administrator by the President for the purposes herein set forth and more fully proposed by bill S. 1875 is not considered to be a satisfactory and expeditious formula, then we earnestly propose that the bill be passed in its present form authorizing the President to pursue the problem of this project in whatever manner he deems necessary. We trust that our views will aid in your consideration of this vital matter and that your decisions and judgment will include our considerations and concern with this grave problem. For we, too, have the interest of all of the people at heart. We respectfully recall the saying of Jules Ormont, "A ship, to run a straight course, can have but one pilot and one steering wheel. The same applies to the successful operation of any project-there cannot be a steering wheel at every seat in an organization." JULIUS JAY PERLMUTTER, Chairman, Sponsors of Government Action Against Cancer. [From the New York World-Telegram, Wednesday, June 12, 1946] The Gallup Poll CANCER RESEARCH FAVORED-87 PERCENT FOR $100,000,000 Tax FUND (By George Gallup, Director, American Institute of Public Opinion) A substantial appropriation by Congress for cancer research, as provided in the Neely-Pepper bills, would have very wide support from the general public, which is even willing to see taxes increased for the purpose. The fact is disclosed in coast-to-coast questioning of voters by interviewers for the institute. The Neely-Pepper program calls for an appropriation of $100,000,000 for research on the disease. Public reaction to this plan was tested in the following manner in the poll: "Do you approve or disapprove of having the Government spend $100,000,000. to find possible ways of preventing or curing cancer in this country?" The vote: Approve No opinion 'Would you be willing to pay more taxes to provide this money?" Yes__ No opinion Those unwilling to pay more taxes include the 9 percent who disapprove the whole program. Approval of the program was found among all major groups in the population. Men and women of all ages and in all levels of society favor the appropriation by majorities ranging from 82 to 91 percent, and more than two out of three in all groups indicate their willingness to pay higher taxes for the purpose. As a matter of fact, the country would be willing to see a cancer appropriation double the size of that proposed by Senator Claude Pepper (Democrat, Florida) and Representative Matthew M. Neely (Democrat, West Virginia). A year ago the institute polled the Nation on the idea of a $200,000,000 con gressional appropriation for both research and treatment, of cancer, the money to be raised by additional taxation. It found a very high vote in favor. That vote remains high today, as a new poll shows, although the number willing to pay additional taxes to make such a fund possible is somewhat smaller. "Should Congress pass a law which would provide $200,000,000 for the study and treatment of cancer in this country?" "Would you be willing to pay more taxes to provide this money?" Yes_ No No opinion Hon. JULIUS JAY PERLMUTTER, New York, N. Y. STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA, DEAR MR. PERLMUTTER: I find that it is impossible for ine to appear and testify in support of the Neely-Pepper cancer bill at a meeting arranged by the subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, for July 1-3, in Washington. However, I wish to go on record as being unqualifiedly in favor of this legislation. I believe that the full amount of the appropriation asked is needed if we are to make any headway in this fight against cancer. Particularly am I impressed with the brevity and simplicity of the bill, and I wholeheartedly endorse the appointment by the President of an independent commission charged with the responsibility of planning and carrying out a program designed ultimately to provide a means of control and cure of this insidious disease. The good work done by the division of cancer control of the State health department in this State has convinced me that no efforts should be spared to win this fight against cancer, and I urge that the Neely-Pepper bill be reported out favorably during the present session of Congress and passed without complicating amendments in order that the President may appoint a commission to undertake the work outlined without delay. I am pleased to give you full permission to submit this letter to the Senate Foreign Affairs Subcommittee at its hearings on this bill as my statement concerning my position on same. Sincerely yours, CLARENCE W. MEADOWS, Governor. |