Cancer Institute

In the U. S. Senate a few weeks ago Homer Truett Bone, small desiccated senior Senator from Washington, buttonholed his colleagues, one by one, with a grim persistence. He did not have to tell them that his and their old friend Senator Peter Norbeck died eight months ago of cancer. He did not have to remind them that by the time a U. S. citizen reaches the age (30 years) when he is eligible for election to the Senate, he must be wary of cancer. Result of his efforts was that Senator Bone got advance assurance of unanimous Senate approval of his bill to finance a National Cancer Institute.

In due time Senator Bone's bill and companion bills sponsored by Representatives Bulwinkle of North Carolina and Maverick of Texas came up for public hearings. Half the cancer specialists of the country, persuaded by Dr. Lewis Ryers Thompson, assistant surgeon general of the U. S. Public Health Service, appeared to testify. Franklin Roosevelt, sitting in his office, last week squiggled his signature and the Bone-Bulwinkle Bill became law.

The new law gives the National Institute of Health, which Dr. Thompson heads, $750,000 to build a laboratory in which the many-sided cancer problem may be studied, and $700,000 for a year's expenses. Gloated Dr. Thompson: "This is the equivalent of the income from $20,000.000."*

Dr. Thompson has another $1,463,000 which Congress, directly or indirectly, has already given the Public Health Service to start moving the National Institute of Health to Bethesda, Md. As soon as buildings are ready Dr. Thompson will move his staff of 650. He no longer does research himself. "I sort of keep an eye on my boys, and help to get the money which enables them to keep going." But he still gets into his old "lab" clothes weekends--to tend the zinnias, phlox and anemones around his home at Chevy Chase. Ground has already been broken for the new buildings at Bethesda, where the Government's newly subsidized cancer research will take place. The donor of that ground was Luke Wilson Sr., 65, philanthropic heir of Chicago's Wilson Bros, (haberdashery manufacturers), part owner (through his wife) of Washington's Woodward & Lothrop department store, great & good friend of Surgeon General Parran, of Senator Robert La Follette (for whose Civil Liberties Committee Luke Wilson Jr. is an investigator), of Secretary Roper. On July 19 Donor Wilson died, of cancer.

* This hypothetical endowment is twice the size of Yale's new $10,000,000 Childs Fund (TIME, July 5), and ten times bigger than any other for like purpose.

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