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Why has the subject of nursing education lagged?

Because the nursing groups themselves have been so very disorganized and disunited; they can't decide what should be done, and there hasn't been a sufficiently strong leadership.

Well, to go on with the health plan business, we in the spring of '47, Florence and I, felt that further emphasis on the health needs of the people could be made by President Truman because we didn't feel that this one statement of his had created enough excitement. And in April we urged him at a meeting that Florence arranged through one of the Cox newspaper reporters to send another message to Congress along the lines of the one sent in 1945. It was our first joint visit with Truman, and how many pleasant ones followed! Florence and I dined alone with President and Mrs. Truman. The first time Stevenson dined with him after his defeat in '52 was the last time we met with him in the White House, but between '47 and '52 we visited the President often and Florence became very friendly with Mrs. Truman about 1951. Actually Florence and her son Michael Mahoney dined with the Trumans on their last night in the White House in '52, or I suppose '53.

In any case, at the spring meeting in 1947 we urged him to give the Medal of Merit to Sir Howard Florey and Sir Alexander Fleming, co-discoverers of penicillin. He said, “Get somebody to write a recommendation about what they've done.”

We turned at once to Dr. Paul Hawley, who was the head of the Veterans Administration, to do this. Hawley said,