Remarks at a Ceremony in Observance of Cancer Control Month.

Mr. Postmaster General, Chairman Johnston, Chairman Murray, Members of the Senate and the House, ladies and gentlemen:

This month of April is Cancer Prevention Month.

It is quite appropriate, I think, that we begin the observance by issuing this Crusade Against Cancer stamp. This stamp will remind us of the efforts being made to eradicate this ancient enemy of mankind which takes so many lives from us each year.

One of the great and one of the exciting realities of our generation is that man is acquiring knowledge and acquiring the tools to exercise control over his own destroy. No other peoples who have ever lived have had the opportunities that we have to make the life on this earth better.

Oh, what a privilege it is to participate in the efforts that are being made in this decade! Rivers can be tamed and floods can be controlled. We have learned how to do that and we do it on a rather big scale. Deserts can be made to flower and we are taking the salt out of the sea in order to make the deserts bloom again.

Illiteracy can be eliminated. Only a moment ago we had a vote on an amendment to our school bill. We expect before the week is out that the subcommittee will report that bill and we hope before next week is out we'll have the Senate act upon it. It will be the most far-reaching attack on illiteracy made in the history of our Government. Hunger and poverty can be wiped from the face of the earth. We launched a program of more than a billion dollars last year and that program is getting underway and giving us great encouragement.

Diseases can be cured and even eradicated for all time. Now, that is the real meaning of the times that we live in. By having such knowledge and having such tools, I think that we in this generation have a sacred trust. We are the stewards of all the people and we must use that knowledge and we must use those tools if we are to provide the leadership for humanity on this globe.

We have less than 200 million people in the world of over 3 billion, but the knowledge we acquire and the tools that we fashion will be translated into all corners of the globe very quickly.

I visited with a head of state here a few days ago and he was talking about the friendship of his people, the people of Upper Volta in Africa, for the people of the United States.

He said with all of our great military power and with all the great assistance that we had rendered to other nations around the globe, all the hundred billions of dollars we have spent, that the thing that had really brought an attachment of his people for Americans was this: that some of our leading drug people had brought machines and vaccinations to his country and that one out of every three children born in that country lost its life because of measles.

A mother that had nine children and loses three of them because of measles, you could see the effect it had upon her and her family. But he said in a matter of hours they ran these children through by this machine and they just had a little quiver on their arms. It doesn't even hurt anymore--to vaccinate them--they just moved them through so fast, and with this new process they vaccinated 750,000. They haven't lost a single life since then because of measles.

Now, he said, regardless of really how the fathers may feel about America, and they feel kindly towards us, but even if they didn't, in order to come home in the evening they would have to change their attitude because of the way the mothers feel about the country that can provide the leadership in saving the lives of their young.

So I think that we must remember what Abraham Lincoln said: "I hold that while man exists it is his duty to improve not only his own condition but to assist in ameliorating mankind."

There will be very few remembered in this room by what kind of a balance sheet you leave when you die, but you see the pictures around the room and the balance sheet they left of lives saved, of poverty wiped out, of improvement of fellow man, and ameliorating these conditions. That is why you remember these men whose pictures are on this wall.

Today one of the most exciting challenges of modern civilization is not just education but health. I want my administration to be remembered, if it is remembered, for what it did to improve the minds and what it did to improve the bodies of all the people of this country, and that knowledge gained therefrom will spread to the people of other countries.

I think our tasks are many. First, we must find cures for some diseases. We must prevent or eliminate others. We must make all citizens and all mankind the beneficiaries of this knowledge and this progress.

We have already accomplished much in America.

We have increased the life expectancy of the American male by 37 years in the past century. He can live 37 years longer than he could a century ago. Problems I dealt with all day yesterday and late in the evening last night were concerned with people who live to be only 35 or 40 years of age, and here we have already extended our male life by their life expectancy.

We have already conquered many of our most feared diseases. The measles that killed the people in Upper Volta is no problem here with us. We have conquered smallpox, malaria, yellow fever, typhus, and polio. We have built the greatest network of hospitals that the world has ever known. Shortly, with the passage of the bipartisan legislation now before the Congress, we will take a giant step toward our goal of making those hospital facilities available to everyone, regardless of his financial condition.

Of these accomplishments I think we can take great pride, but as I have said before, we must not allow the modern miracles of medicine to mesmerize us. A great deal more remains to be done and is going to be done.

This year, 850,000 Americans will be under medical care for cancer. About 295,000 will die from it--that is one every 2 minutes. Over the years, cancer will strike in approximately two of three American families.

So our task is cut out for us.

Last January I sent to Congress a special message on advancing the Nation's health. Our plan and our purpose is to make a 5-year, all-out attack on cancer and the two other major killers in the United States-heart disease and stroke.

We read that we lost a Marine yesterday in a helicopter foray in South Viet-Nam and it troubled all of us. But how many thousand Americans did we lose right here at home because we had not faced up with proper equipment to finding a solution to these dreadful diseases?

I believe that the next 10 or 15 years will mark the most significant advances in health and medicine of this century--or any other.

We will be building on top of a foundation of solid research in the cancer field. We already have accomplished much, both in diagnosis and in treatment. A decade ago only one in four cancer patients was saved. That was 10 years ago. We have in 10 years moved that from one out of four saved to one out of three saved and if we could diagnose every case in time it could be one out of two. So it is well within the realm of possibility that sometime during the 1970's the end will come for cancer as it has in our own times for the thing that troubled all mothers just a few years ago, polio.

So I think we must realize that we stand on the threshold of a real breakthrough in these fields. I believe we can be and I think we should be proud of our society's dedication to human betterment. This is no place for partisanship. This is an area where all good Americans can agree.

This Nation and this people are committed to peace. They are committed to saving and extending human life instead of destroying it. And the time will come when all the millions and the billions that we are now spending to preserve freedom with guns and with weapons and with helicopters and with bombers and with missiles-that we can use some small percentage of that to preserving lives.

Ten years ago I was taken into a one night. I had an hour to get there. I was to go into shock and after they dressed me and got the oxygen tent ready and I smoked a cigarette, my blood pressure dropped to zero and there was some doubt prevailing in those quarters about that time. Even I had some doubts. But as a result of the great training Dr. Paul Dudley White had given a young man who happened to be on duty that night, he kept me going through the night and my blood pressure came up and my life was saved.

This year I borrowed the money the other day to pay the Government a tax of $100,000. They have a procedure where they pay it to the President with the left hand and take it out with the right.

But there are many thousands of people who have had that heart attack that were not saved and weren't fortunate enough to have that kind of treatment. There are many people who have passed on because of cancer who could be here earning today. So it is one of the best investments we could make from a strictly monetary, cold, cruel business standpoint. If we could find what causes cancer and heart disease and stroke and preserve the lives that we lose every year we would increase our gross national product $32 billion--32 billion. Isn't it worth spending one or two to get back 32, not for 1 year but ad infinitum ?

So we are going to be saving, economy minded, careful, and stingy about nearly everything that we deal with except health and except education and except humanity. We are going to try to save the money from the tanks and the missiles and the nuclear production and conserve all those resources we can in order to put them into preserving these human resources.

I think this is a fine thing for the Postmaster General to do. I appreciate the cooperation of the Congress. And when in time this period is recorded, the history of it is written, I think that most of you will be rather proud that you stood here today when this cancer movement was undertaken in an attempt to awaken interest, and that you participated. And your grandchildren can look at this picture and say that you were here fighting the battle for children yet unborn. From that fight you will get a satisfaction that all the gold in Fort Knox will not equal.

In behalf of improving our bodies and preserving our lives, I would like you to know that as we were talking, our very able Senators, Members of both parties, voted the most far-reaching, comprehensive education bill in the history of this Nation, voted it out of the Senate committee--it's already passed the House--voted it out of the Senate committee unanimously with no amendments.

Thank you very much.