A passion
for discovery seems to be a core American value. But
America's celebration of science is also very
practical, based on anticipated benefits to people
and the nation. Patent awards for innovations like
the cotton gin or the electric light bulb came
because they were useful to society. The Morrill Act
of 1862 created state universities with a mission to
pursue practical work in areas like military tactics
and agriculture. In 1942, President Franklin
Roosevelt oversaw the start of the highly secret
Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. With a
strategy of amassing the best private scientists of
the day, the project moved at breakneck speed to
unlock the secrets of the atom before Adolf
Hitler's scientists could do so. The bomb that
would end World War II also revealed the dark side
of science.
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National lab. President
Roosevelt undoubtedly had defense research and the
looming war in mind when he made the trek out to the
rolling hills of Bethesda, Md. There he dedicated
the newly donated campus for what had been a
hygienic laboratory renamed the National Institute
of Health. In his speech on Oct. 31, 1940, from the
portico of what is still NIH's headquarters
building, FDR pledged that America would devote
great effort to "life conservation, rather than
life destruction." Suffering himself with high
blood pressure and paralyzed legs from polio, he
spoke to the need for physical fitness by applying
science to the prevention and treatment of disease.
He described NIH and its new National Cancer
Institute as a "universal language of peace and
humanitarianism" to benefit people here and
everywhere. And he laid out a plan. "We cannot
be a strong nation unless we are a healthy nation.
And so we must recruit not only men and materials
but also knowledge and science in the service of
national strength." On that day he declared a
manifesto for government support of medical science
as keen and forward looking as Jefferson's call
for the expedition of Lewis and Clark. Drawing on
the model that was working so well in the defense
arena, he outlined a similar path for medicine. The
government, based on national need, would make
grants to researchers working in private
universities and research labs. Sensitive to fears
in the medical community that government money would
threaten medicine's independence, he affirmed
his own personal respect for the doctor-patient
relationship and declared there were no plans to
"socialize medical practice any more than [a]
plan to socialize industry." His vision was
both practical and romantic: "I voice for
America, and for the stricken world, our hopes, our
prayers, our faith in the power of man's
humanity to man."
Four years later, with
our nation deeply embroiled in war, Roosevelt sent
instructions to Vannevar Bush, his science adviser,
to plan for research in the days of peace to come.
The goals: improved health and a better national
standard of living. He declared a "war of
science against disease," noting that deaths
from one or two diseases exceeded those lost in
battle. By then Roosevelt was a wan and wasted man,
too weak to manage his heavy leg braces. His blood
pressure was out of control, his heart failing.
Barely four months after his message to Bush, he
collapsed with a massive stroke and died; four weeks
later victory was declared in Europe.
