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On November 19, 1945 the message appeared. Before the message was to appeal Sam Rosenman called me and said, “I want you to get a group of people who will support the President on this message. I'm afraid it will get him into a lot of trouble with the medical societies, especially the AMA. I really feel we must protect him on this one.”

I telephoned to Michael Davis and explained the situation and within a short time Anna and I had a large number of people who were willing to sign an ad praising the President's health message to Congress. The message supported in general terms legislation which was before Congress. The major items which had been accomplished and which were suggested in this message were the Hill-Burton Bill for hospital construction and the Institutes of Health for research in heart, mental health, arthritis, neurological diseases and blindness, and some others.

Here is the ad which appeared in the New York Times on December 10, 1945.

And that was your idea.

Yes, this was our idea, and we paid for cost of the ad and maybe some of the other people made some small contributions. You'll see a great variety of people signed it, from David Sarnoff, Gardner Cowles, Barry Bingham, William O'Dwyer, Mrs. Roosevelt, Ilka Chase. Many of these names we got from a committee that was headed by Jo Davidson and Jo