White House Press Release, Address of President Harry S. Truman at the National Health Assembly Dinner

153 INFORMAL REMARKS OF THE PRESIDENT at THE NATIONAL HEALTH ASSEMBLY DINNER Statler Hotel, Washington, D.C. May 1, 1948, 9:55 p.m., e.s.t. (Not broadcast) Mr. Chairman, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen: It is a pleasure to me to be with you tonight, and to listen, as I like to do, to the Marine Band. I was highly pleased with that barber shop quartette. I understood their music very well. And if you don't think that it is just as complicated and just as hard to execute as those numbers that the Marine Band were executing, try to do it some day. I want to congratulate the recipients of the Citations tonight. They have made a contribution, and are making a contribution, towards something which is closer to my heart than any other one thing in the world except peace in the world. And the contribution that they are making to the welfare and health of this country can contribute toward peace in the world. Of course, that is the first thing all of us are striving for. When Mr. Ewing consulted me about the health program, I did write him a letter. He tells you that I write a good many letters. I sign my name on the average of six hundred times a day. Not all to letters, some of them are orders and to checks and things of that sort, usually on the Treasury of the United States. If I sign any check, it is at the expense of the taxpayer. NARA But I am vitally interested in health, and the welfare of this country. That is fundamental. This meeting was called with the object in view of trying to outline a ten-year program for the health and welfare of the people of this country. I became interested in health and welfare a long time ago, comparatively. More than thirty years ago -- to be exactly accurate, in 1917. It was my privilege to help organize a regiment of field artillery. That is the reason they played that field artillery song up there. And one of the shocking things that came to my attention when they were organizing that regiment was the number of young men who were physically unfit for service. That was a National Guard volunteer regiment, and when a man got turned down because he was physically unfit, that was not only tragic to him but it was tragic to us who wanted him to serve with us. Then, after that unpleasantness was over, known as the First World War, we thought we had settled the peace of the world for all time to come. I got into politics, and I became the chief executive officer of the County at home. The County had about five or six hundred thousand inhabitants at that time. That has been twenty years ago. And it was my duty, as the Presiding Officer of that Court, which was really a Commission -- it was an administrative organization -- to pass, with the other two judges, on the sanity of the people who would come before the judges and Court, who would be tried for mental cases. Those cases ran over an eight year period while I was in the Court -- from two to three to the thousand of that population of that County. A most horrify- ing situation. It was our duty to send those people to the State hospitals for care -- and we had a number of excellent hospitals in the State of Missouri, and still have them, where they really know how to take care of people with mental diseases. That did not include the people who were in private institutions. I became aware of what that situation means in a community and what it means to future generations. It was also my duty at that time to see that poor people were properly taken care of from a health standpoint. We had two medical men in that County at that time who devoted their whole time to the health and welfare of those people, who couldn't afford to pay for medical care. We had an excellent County home where -- which had a population on the average of about eight hundred all the time. And Kansas City had a hospital which contained from five to seven hundred, all the time, of (OVER)