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President Calvin Coolidge, Address at the Annual Session of the American Medical Association, Washington, D.C., May 17, 1927

“...Those who have witnessed the general paralysis which prevails when even a moderate epidemic breaks out can not help but realize that one of the most important factors of our everyday existence is the public health, which has come to be dependent upon sanitation and the medical profession. We are constantly in receipt of the beneficial activities of these efforts in the disposition of waste, the water we drink, the food we eat, and even in the air we breathe. This great work is carried on partly through private initiative, partly through Government effort, partly by a combination of these two working in harmony with the science of chemistry, of engineering, and of applied medicine. In its main aspects it is preventive, but in a very large field it is remedial. Without this service our large centers of population would be overwhelmed and dissipated almost in a day and the modern organization of society would be altogether destroyed. The debt which we owe to the science of medicine is simply beyond computation or comprehension….

If there is any one thing which the progress of science has taught us, it is the necessity of an open mind. Without this attitude very little advance could be made. Truth must always be able to demonstrate itself. But when it has been demonstrated, in whatsoever direction it may lead, it ought to be followed.”

President Lyndon B. Johnson, Special Message to the Congress on the Nation's Health (1964)

The American people are not satisfied with better-than-average health. As a Nation, they want, they need, and they can afford the best of health:

--not just for those of comfortable means.

--but for all our citizens, old and young, rich and poor.

In America,

--There is no need and no room for second-class health services.

...Too many Americans still are cut off by low incomes from adequate health services. Too many older people are still deprived of hope and dignity by prolonged and costly illness. The linkage between ill-health and poverty in America is still all too plain.

In its first session, the 88th Congress made some important advances on the health front:

--It acted to increase our supply of physicians and dentists.

--It began a Nation-wide attack on mental illness and mental retardation.

--And it strengthened our efforts against air pollution.

But our remaining agenda is long, and it will be unfinished until each American enjoys the full benefits of modern medical knowledge.

Part of this agenda concerns a direct attack on that particular companion of poor health--poverty. Above all, we must see to it that all of our children, whatever the economic condition of their parents, can start life with sound minds and bodies.

My message to the Congress on poverty will set forth measures designed to advance us toward this goal.

In today's message, I present the rest of this year's agenda for America's good health.

1. Everett Koop, Surgeon General's Report on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (1987):

“Every person can reduce the risk of exposure to the AIDS virus through preventive measures that are simple, straightforward, and effective. However, if people are to follow these recommended measures-to act responsibly to protect themselves and others-they must be informed about them. That is an obvious statement, but not a simple one. Educating people about AIDS has never been easy.

From the start, this disease has evoked highly emotional and often irrational responses. Much of the reaction could be attributed to fear of the many unknowns surrounding a new and very deadly disease. This fear was compounded by personal feelings regarding the groups of people primarily affected-homosexual men and intravenous drug abusers. Rumors and misinformation spread rampantly and became as difficult to combat as the disease itself. It is time to put self-defeating attitudes aside and recognize that we are fighting a disease-not people. We must control the spread of AIDS, and at the same time offer the best we can to care for those who are sick.”

Orestes Brownson, The Laboring Classes: An Article from the Boston Quarterly Review, Boston: Benjamin H. Greene, 1840.

“Whom has Mr. Brownson slandered? . . .We are under restraints, but they are voluntarily assumed; and we are at liberty to withdraw from them, whenever they become galling or irksome. Neither have I ever discovered that any restraints were imposed upon us but those which were necessary for the peace and comfort of the whole, and for the promotion of the design for which we are collected, namely, to get money, as much of it and as fast as we can; and it is because our toil is so unremitting, that the wages of factory girls are higher than those of females engaged in most other occupations. It is these wages which, in spite of toil, restraint, discomfort, and prejudice, have drawn so many worthy, virtuous, intelligent, and well-educated girls to Lowell, and other factories; and it is the wages which are in great degree to decide the characters of the factory girls as a class. . . .”

NOTE: A complete volume of The Lowell Offering, 1840-1842 (subtitled "A repository of original articles on various subjects, written by factory operatives”) is available here.

What is to be Done?

Martha Bensley Bruere in Life and Labor (1911)

Harris and Blanck, the Triangle Company, have offered to pay one week's wages to the families of the dead girls--as though it were summer and they are giving them a vacation!

Three days after the fire they inserted in the trade papers this notice: “NOTICE, THE TRIANGLE WAIST CO. beg to notify their customers that they are in good working order. HEADQUARTERS now at 9-11 University Place.”

The day after they were installed in their new quarters, the Building Department of New York City discovered that 9-11 University Place was not even fireproof, and that the firm had already blocked the exit to the one fire escape by two rows of sewing machines.

And still as I write the mourning procession moves past in the rain. For two hours they have been going steadily by and the end is not yet in sight. There have been no carriages, no imposing marshals on horseback; just thousands and thousands of working men and women carrying the banners of their trades through the long three-mile tramp in the rain. Never have I seen a military pageant or triumphant ovation so impressive; for it is not because 146 workers were killed in the Triangle shop-not altogether. It is because every year there are 50,000 working men and women killed in the United States-136 a day; almost as many as happened to be killed together on the 25th of March; and because slowly, very slowly, it is dawning on these thousands on thousands that such things do not have to be!

LABOR OUTRAGES DUE TO OLD LAWS (1912)

CHICAGO, Jan. 2. -- Application of old laws to new conditions has a tendency to develop men of the McNamara type in the opinion of Miss Jane Addams, who returned to the city after presenting a petition to President Taft asking for the appointment of a commission to study the relations between employers and employees.

"It seems to me that all our laws dealing with labor unions are in need of [revision]," said Miss Addams. "The trusts are being prosecuted for violating laws, which they assert are not applicable to modern industrial conditions. So with the labor unions. Like the trusts, the labor unions are of recent origin, and laws enacted at a time when conditions were entirely different are being applied to them. The result is a growing distrust in the judiciary among large groups of labor, as they see employers appeal to the courts to thwart every movement made to improve the status of the worker. There is no denying the fact that the courts have shown a willingness to serve the interests of the employers and have placed property rights higher than human rights. The courts are following traditions and precedents that do not fit into the modern scheme of things.

…I have, of course, no idea what President Taft will do about a commission, but he received us very cordially and appeared to be much interested in the question. I am hopeful that such a commission will be created and I feel confident that it would accomplish good results."

Mary Church Terrell, "Solving the Colored Woman's Problem" (1933)

Solving the Colored Woman's Problem.

Colored Women in the United States have more, larger and harder problems to solve than do those of any other racial group. One had only to know the conditions under which they lived for 250 years during slavery and those which obtain today to understand why this is so.

When a small but noble band of women began an agitation in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848, by which colleges were opened to women and numerous reforms inaugurated for the improvement of their condition along all lines, their sisters who groaned in bondage had little reason to hope that these blessings would ever brighten their crushed and blighted lives.

For in those days of oppression and despair colored women were not only refused admission to schools, as a rule, but the law of the States in which the majority lived made it a crime to teach them to read. Not only could they possess no property, but they did not even own themselves. So pernicious were the customs, so gloomy were their prospects, so fatal the laws only seventy years ago.

But, from the day their fetters were broken and their minds were released from the darkness of ignorance in which they had been held nearly three hundred years; from the day they could stand in the dignity of womanhood, no longer bond but free till this minute, colored women have forged steadily ahead in the acquisition of knowledge and in the cultivation of these graces of character which make for good. To use a thought of the illustrious Frederick Douglass, if judged by the depths from which they have come, rather than by the heights to which their more favored sisters have attained, colored women need not hang their heads in shame. The work they have accomplished and the progress they have made will bear favorable comparison, at least with that of more fortunate women from whom the opportunity of acquiring knowledge and the means of self culture have never been entirely held.

THE EQUAL PAY ACT OF 1963 DECLARATION OF PURPOSE:

• (a) The Congress hereby finds that the existence in industries engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce of wage differentials based on sex-
  1. (1) depresses wages and living standards for employees necessary for their health and efficiency;
  2. (2) prevents the maximum utilization of the available labor resources;
  3. (3) tends to cause labor disputes, thereby burdening, affecting, and obstructing commerce;
  4. (4) burdens commerce and the free flow of goods in commerce; and
  5. (5) constitutes an unfair method of competition.
• (b) It is hereby declared to be the policy of this Act, through exercise by Congress of its power to regulate commerce among the several States and with foreign nations, to correct the conditions above referred to in such industries.

“..Today our farm workers have come to Sacramento. To the governor and the legislature of California we say you cannot close your eyes and your ears to us any longer. You cannot pretend that we do not exist. You cannot plead ignorance to our problems because we are here and we embody our needs for you. And we are not alone. We are accompanied by many friends. The religious leaders of the state, spear-headed by the migrant ministry, the student groups, the civil rights groups that make up the movement that has been successful in securing civil rights for Negroes in this country, right-thinking citizens and our staunchest ally, organized labor, are all in the revolution of the farm worker.

...The day has ended when the farm worker will let himself be used as a pawn by employers, government, and others who would exploit them for their own ends. La huelga and la causa is our cry, and everyone must listen. Viva la huelga! Viva Cesar Chavez!”

November 30, 1997

A decisive union victory in the nation's longest strike and the signing of a visionary contract at the world's largest hotel-casino have boosted the fortunes of service workers on the lower rungs of the work force in this gambling mecca.

"Las Vegas, whatever else anybody says about it, has become a city where maids can own their homes and raise their families," said Hattie Canty, president of Culinary Workers Union Local 226, a former maid and widowed mother of 10 who has done just that. Her union has claimed victory in a bitter labor dispute at the Frontier Hotel-Casino, where workers have been on strike since Sept. 21, 1991.

….Today, Local 226 has a squeaky-clean reputation and an image of diversity reflective of the industry. It maintains two training centers for workers, originally opposed and now financially supported by the hotels. More than half of the union's members are women. Slightly more than a third of members are Latino, 30 percent are white, 12 percent black, 11 percent Asian and the others of mixed race.

Canty, an African American who raised her large family after her husband died of cancer 24 years ago, says the union has demonstrated that service workers can live in dignity.