Remarks Upon Accepting the Special Albert Lasker Award for Leadership in Health

Mrs. Lasker, Dr. DeBakey, Dr. Rusk, members of the awards committee, members of the Lasker Foundation, and distinguished guests:

I come here this morning to accept gratefully the 1965 Albert Lasker Award for Leadership in Health, but I want to make it clear to all of those who participate in this ceremony, and to all of those who may read of it, that I share this honor with the Members of the 88th and 89th Congresses who played such an important part in translating our recommendations and our proposals into reality.

They have declared that not only life but a healthy life must be among man's inalienable rights. Since I became your President a little over 2 years ago, we have increased our Federal investment in education from a little less than $5 billion to a little more than $10 billion per year. Since I became your President a little over 2 years ago, we have increased your investment in health from a little less than $5 billion to a little over $10 billion this year.

Now this is not just a box score figure. It means that this coming year we will spend $10 billion more on education and health than we were spending when I became President. It means we will have reduced death and disability. It will mean a longer life span for our people. It means that we will triumph over the preventable or controllable diseases which still afflict our citizens.

We have the lowest loss rate per wounded soldiers that any army ever had on a battlefield. In Vietnam we are losing less than 1 out of every 100 men who are wounded. The enemy is losing a much, much higher percentage. And that one we are losing is less than half of what we lost in Korea. That speaks for the great advances that the science of medicine and the great skill that the doctors and surgeons have displayed in that area of the world.

Where income and productivity are lowest in America, disease, disability, and death are highest in America. As family incomes decline, infant mortality ruthlessly goes up. And when medical care is dispensed, the 15 million children of the poor always await at the end of the line. But we mean to change that. We cannot stop there, because every single minute in the underprivileged two-thirds of the world 20 people die of malaria and smallpox and cholera and other infectious diseases.

During the few minutes that I am speaking to you this morning, 100 persons, 100 of our fellow human beings, will die of ailments that we have learned to control in the first 50 years of this century. In the underdeveloped two-thirds of the world, the average life span is only 35 years, 35 years that is very often plagued with a great deal of what is, today, unnecessary suffering.

That is why, when we were making our studies last year of our aid programs, when some of you were attending me at Bethesda, we decided then that instead of participating, as we had been, to the extent of trying to industrialize some nations, trying to improve their communications, trying to build them concrete highways, and so forth, that we would direct our efforts to those who would help themselves and help themselves particularly in the field of improving the body and health, improving the mind with schools, and improving the human being with food.

So we are concentrating our energies and our aid program and our investment in the world today on education, on health, and on food.

We had a great demonstration of the Congress' ability to act, and act wisely, thoroughly, and somewhat promptly in the measure that they completed yesterday--the Indian food resolution whereby the people of America will send to India something in the neighborhood of $1 billion worth of food to help feed some 35 or 40 million people who might not pull through at all without this food.

The thing that gave me such great pride was that there in the Congress, made up of 535 Members--members of both parties, members of both sexes, members of several races--there was not a single vote cast against that bill in either House. That speaks not only for the intelligence of the Congress and the foresight of the Congress, but the compassion of the American people.

So I submitted to Congress the International Health Act of 1966, an act which will create an international career service to health, an act which will help our health professionals strengthen medical training and gain valuable experience in the developing countries. It will combat malnutrition, it will help conquer disease which disables millions of people. It aims at eradicating smallpox by 1975, at freeing 800 million people from malaria in the next 10 years, of sharply curtailing measles and cholera.

The magnitude of this task will make the work of the last 50 years, great as it has been, seem very small. Our work in health is tragically incomplete.

Now, I know some of you are going to remind me that we didn't get a rule on that health bill the other day. We didn't expect to get a rule that day. That never did get in our report. Two of our Members left early because they didn't anticipate a vote. And when they did vote, because they were not there the rule was not reported.

But somehow or other I kind of have a feeling that the reporters will get two stories for the price of one--we may get that bill reported some of these days and I know that all of you will join with me in expressing the hope that we do.

So this morning I accept this award with a pledge that every dollar of it will go to charitable causes in the field of health and education. I accept this award with the hope that we can do more at home and then--with all the power of my mind and my voice and my hand--try to turn the vision of the American people beyond the borders of the United States and turn it to the lands where suffering people await answers that only the leadership of America can give.

Years ago Louis Pasteur said, "I hold the unconquerable belief that science and peace will triumph over ignorance and war; that nations will come together not to destroy, but to construct; and that the future belongs to those who accomplish most for humanity."

What will we accomplish for humanity? Well, I am so proud that Mrs. Lasker and her distinguished and beloved and generous husband, who came from my State of Texas, have already accomplished much for humanity with their leadership and with their generosity. And as long as there are lives to be saved, as long as there are bodies to be healed, as long as there are mouths to be fed, I cannot for a moment ever forget that history will judge us, and she is looking over our shoulder now.

I know, too, that Mary Lasker and the members of this distinguished jury will never let the people of this land forget it. I could observe that they are going to want me to spend more money than I can spend this year, but I guess if I have to get overridden on anything I hope that the generosities will be displayed in the fields of food for our children, education for their minds, and health, medicine, doctor and dental care for their bodies, because there is so much in this world to do and there is such a little time that we have to do it.

Thank you all.