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Mary LaskerMary Lasker
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of the Public Health Service, an assistant to Dr. Parran, the Surgeon General, about the importance of the work.

Before this, on October 14, 1941, she arranged for me to see Dr. Warren F. Draper about the importance of child spacing in their health programs, the U.S. Public Health Service programs throughout the question. Dr. Draper, after many anecdotes, said that they would not initiate or promote planned parenthood programs, but if the states would ask for funds for such a program on their own initiative, the U.S. Public Health Service would give favorable consideration to their requests for funds. Believe it or not, even this attitude was revolutionary for the Public Health Service, because they had never recognized before that it was a problem. And he said this only because I came from Mrs. Franklin Roosevelt, whose husband was President of the United States at that particular moment.

I asked him to write me a letter to this effect, which he said he would do. The letter is an historical document, as it was the first time the Public Health Service had recognized that there was such a thing as child spacing in writing, and that any of their funds could be used for it. It's now in the files of the Planned Parenthood Federation. It has provided the basis for its drive for child spacing clinics to be integrated into the public health and maternal care services in every state.

After my interview with Dr. Draper, I took my bags to the White House and was shown a room over the main portico. It





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