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Mary LaskerMary Lasker
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Part:         Session:         Page of 1143

giving drugs or helping to get people out of the state institutions, trained people, just aren't present.

Q:

And I suppose in back of all that lies...

Lasker:

State legislatures and members and governors who have no understanding or imagination, and there's the general idea that you can do nothing about mental illness. This still lingers, you know, of course.

Q:

I've wanted to ask you what you do to follow through on such things as the resolutions passed by a governors conference. What do you do to implement them?

Lasker:

Well, we get publicity for these resolutions at the time. We use on our stationery the summary of the governors' resolution, still. It was in medical journals. We did whatever you could do to publicize it, maybe not as much as should be done, but the very fact that there was such a thing made the state mental health officers realize that they were supposed to do something.

Q:

How much personal control have you maintained over this Committee?

Lasker:

I maintain complete control over it because unless I want to go on with it I don't have to support it with any funds,





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