STATEMENT OF DR. ROBERT P. FISCHELIS, SECRETARY AND GENERAL MANAGER, AMERICAN PHARMACEUTICAL ASSOCIATION, WASHINGTON, D. C.

My name is Robert P. Fischelis. I am secretary and general manager of the American Pharmaceutical Association, located at 2215 Constitution Avenue NW., Washington, D. C.

I am here to express approval of the President's Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1949, which proposes the creation of a Department of Welfare to include the present functions and subdivisions of the Federal Security Agency.

No plan of organization of any executive branch of the Government could please everyone in every detail, but we believe that, all things considered, the proposal to create a Department of Welfare on the Cabinet level, which is to include the Public Health Service, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Office of Education, is logical and sound in the light of past experience with the grouping of these Departments in the Federal Security Agency.

The American Pharmaceutical Association was founded in 1852 and is the professional society of pharmacists in the United States. Membership is on an individual basis but the house of delegates of the association, which is its policy-forming body, includes delegates from all of the State pharmaceutical associations, all important national pharmaceutical associations, the sections of the associations, affiliated associations, and members of the council.

In the interim between annual meetings, the association is governed by a council of 16 members.

The officers and members of the council are elcted by a mail ballot submitted to the entire membership.

We are not a trade association and do not concern ourselves with the business of pharmacy. There are trade associations of manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers, which deal with trade problems concerning the production and distribution of drugs. We are concerned with the relation of pharmacy and pharmacists to the public health, to the education of pharmacists, to licensure and registration of pharmacists, and to the development of the ethics of the profession. We publish two scientific and professional journals and the National Formulary, which is one of the official compendia for drug standards under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, and we maintain a laboratory for the development of impartial standards for drugs.

My own experience includes the practice of pharmacy, teaching, journalism, and regulatory work at both State and Federal levels, and I have had nearly 8 years of service as a member of a State board of health, and nearly 20 years of experience as a cooperating State official with the Federal Food and Drug Administration. I have also been with the War Production Board during the war years in an executive capacity.

Pharmacists are in continual contact with the State and Federal health departments and with State and Federal regulatory officials dealing with the production and distribution of drugs and medicines. They are also in frequent contact with the State and Federal departments of education, especially the divisions dealing with higher and professional education. Our experience with the Federal Security

Agency and its subdivisions has been very satisfactory and we are hopeful that its present form of organization and means of contact with the profession of pharmacy and the drug industry will be disturbed as little as possible. Elevation of the agency to a department headed by a Cabinet officer will contribute greatly to its ability to get things done and we believe it rates Cabinet status from any point of view.

We have been impressed with the broad definition for health which was included in the constitution of the World Health Organization. This document defines health as a "state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." In the light of this definition, the association of health, education, and welfare in one department is not only logical but gives assurance of essential integration of activities that contribute to the public health and welfare.

Nearly 5 years of experience as a section chief and division director in the Office of Civilian Requirements of the War Production Board convince me that Cabinet rank for any Government department is a great asset which is almost indispensable to an agency dealing with such important public projects as health, education, and social security. Without going into the merits or justification of separate Cabinet rank for each of these categories, it seems clear that good organization and economy of operation at this time demands as few additional departments as possible. There is hardly any grouping of activities into a single department which seems more logical than the one proposed. Hence, we believe that the President's approach to the problem of organizing these services is realistic.

When the council of the American Pharmaceutical Association recorded itself in favor of Cabinet status for the Federal Security Agency, it simultaneously called attention to the fact that it is opposed to any regimentation of the professions dealing with medical care, and I want to make it clear that endorsement of Cabinet status for the Federal Security Agency is in no manner to be construed as an endorsement by the American Pharmaceutical Association of compulsory national health insurance to which the association is definitely opposed. We have issued a separate statement on this subject which has been made available to the committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives considering the subject. We do not believe that this issue should be confused with the establishment of a Department of Welfare to carry on the present functions of the Federal Security Agency and its subdivisions.

In our judgment, it is best for agencies dealing with the problems of education, the problems of health, and the problems of social welfare, to be organized for their specific professional, technical and other expert functions, but to be responsible to an over-all administrator.

This administrator need not be an educator or a physician or a sociologist. He should be, above all, a public-spirited citizen of great capacity, who has an adequate appreciation of all of the factors that make up a good program of education, health and social welfare and the ability to give leadership and administrative supervision to such a program. If the President should find a member of the legal, medical, or allied health professions, or an educator, or a sociologist, or a member of some other profession, or an industrialist with wide

experience in the field of public health and welfare, such as we have at the head of some of our great pharmaceutical industries, who, in his opinion, will make a good administrator for such a Department, the country should not be deprived of the services of such an individual because he does not happen to be a practicing physician. For this reason, specification of the profession of the person who is to assume top direction of health, education, and welfare functions seems to us to be unwise.

Public health work has so many ramifications and is dependent upon so many professional and general services in addition to those supplied by physicians that the concept that only a physician is competent to give top administrative direction to such activity, with all due respect, is fallacious. The administrative supervision of medical associations, colleges of medicine, health agencies and foundations dealing with health problems, is frequently in the hands of men who are not physicians and they are well administered.

We have great confidence in the Food and Drug Administration, which has jurisdiction over the quality, labeling and introduction of drugs and antibiotics. We would feel better if either the Commissioner of Food and Drugs, or one of the associate commissioners were a pharmacist or a man with a background of pharmaceutical training, but even then we believe the drug industry would prefer to have a lay administrator supervising this agency, to whom appeals could be made in case of arbitrary rulings or interpretations before court action is resorted to.

In conclusion, we would point out that, in essence, the issue before this committee is whether the Federal Security Agency shall receive Cabinet status as the Department of Welfare. We submit that affirmative action on this proposal is logical and highly desirable in order to enable the Federal Security Agency to discharge its functions more efficiently and effectively in the public interest.

I thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. All right, sir. We thank you very much.

I notice one statement here which you qoute from the Constitution of the World Health Organization, which you refer to as being very broad and defines health as "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely as absence of disease or informity."

Do you not think that statement might well be broadened to include prosperity? I wonder why they left that out.

Dr. FISCHELIS. I don't know. Certainly in the additional statements in the preamble of the Constitution of the World Health Organization they have outlined very broadly what the field of health is. I have only selected this one item because it is the over-all definition.

The CHAIRMAN. I have been kind of depressed a few times because of financial worries. It has as much effect on me sometimes as a cold. I wonder why it should be omitted. I think we ought to look after the security and well-being of the people with respect to prospering in their financial needs as well as their social needs.

All right, thank you very much.

Any questions?

Senator SMITH. No. questions.

Senator SCHOEPPEL. No questions. The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Zook? Are you present? Come forward, Doctor, please.

STATEMENT OF DR. GEORGE F. ZOOK, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN COUNCIL OF EDUCATION, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Dr. Zook. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my name is George F. Zook, and I am the president of the American Council on Education, a body in this country which attempts to federate the activities of the almost innumerable number of organizations, institutions, schools, and colleges that are in the field of education. The membership of the council at the present time consists of some 69 constituent organizations, 58 organizations that are in associate membership and 929 institutional members, making a total membership of 1,056.

In many respects, Mr. Chairman, we feel that the council represents our one and only effort in this country to be an over-all educational organization.

I would like also to say that it was my privilege to be the United States Commissioner of Education during the year 1933-34. It was at the end of that year that I became president of the American Council on Education, and I have therefore had something of an unusual opportunity, I think, to watch the development of that organization and to be familiar with the problems which it encounters.

I might add that during that period from 1920 to 1925 I was in charge of the Division of Higher Education in the Office of Education, so I have had a total of 6 years personal experience in that organization. I am here to testify this morning in favor of the reorganization of the Federal Security Agency into a Department of Welfare. I would like to say that I arrive at that conclusion in considerable part out of my own experience and in part out of the observations which I have had the opportunity to make with respect to educational matters here in Washington, D. C.

It seems to me that it almost goes without saying that the Federal Government, the same as the State governments, should be organized into as few major departments as is at all possible. I am sure that you are all well acquainted with the fact that at the State level there have been continuing efforts in a number of States to organize the various divisions of work into a small number of major departments. That same situation to an even greater extent is called for here in Washington, and while it may sometimes seem desirable to set up a relatively new activity as an independent agency in order that it may have an opportunity to show the character of its work and its relative importance, it seems to me that it soon becomes evident that each of these independent agencies should be organized into the regular scheme of Federal departments. Hence, in the interest simply of good administration, it seems to me that this is a very good suggestion.

I would like to say that I was in favor of the transfer of the United States Office of Education from the Department of the Interior, in which it was located at the time I was Commissioner of Education, to the Federal Security Agency, because it seemed to me that that in

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creased the status of the Office at a time when that was extremely important. I believe our experience has shown that to be the case, because it has since that time been a major division of an agency, whereas in the previous years it had always been a relatively small organization buried within a department.

May I call your attention next to the perfectly well-known fact that at the Federal level education has, especially within recent years, become increasingly important. We started out, of course, with the passage of the act setting up the United States Office of Education. Even prior to that time there had been passed what we know as the Morrill Act providing for the support of colleges of agriculture and mechanical arts in the various States of the Union. Since that time we have had, one after the other, the passage of numerous other acts having to do with education at the Federal level. I am thinking, of course, of the GI legislation in Public Laws 346 and 16. I am thinking of the temporary housing legislation at the colleges that was necessary during the war. I am thinking of extension in agriculture and home economics and a number of other specific educational activities that have been set up at the Federal level. As I am sure you all know also, there are now prominently before the Congress a number of other suggestions for further Federal activities relating to the field of education, one of them being the much-discussed matter of Federal aid to schools, another the setting up of a so-called Science Foundation, still another the possible establishment of labor extension activity in the Department of Labor.

May I also point out that in the recent two wars, and particularly in the Second World War, we found that education at the national level was playing a surprisingly important part, because it was in the universities and colleges of the country, both public and private, and in the vocational schools of the country that a large proportion of the persons who participated in that war were prepared, sometimes in lengthy courses of study, sometimes in shorter ones. Hence, even in the area of national defense there is hardly an activity that the Fed-. eral Government engages in which is more important than that involving education.

I would like to say that a number of these activities which have been set up in recent years or which are now contemplated to be set up are being placed in various divisions of the Government quite separate and apart from the United States Office of Education. In many instances you will find that people regret that a great deal, and I have no question in my own mind but that more of that has taken place than should have taken place. On the other hand, a number of these activities are thoroughly germane to the particular divisions to which they are attached. I think no one would think, for example, of separating the function of education so far as Indian Affairs are concerned from the Indian Bureau and putting it in the Office of Education. Neither do I think that anyone would ever contemplate the possibility of placing the United States Military Academy and the Naval Academy under an office of education instead of in the War and Naval Departments, respectively.

So I would like to say, sir, that I am not one of those persons who believe that it is possible to concentrate in the United States Office of Education or in any major division of education in the Government all of the so-called educational functions.