The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-07-07

grades, indebtedness, absenteeism, poor eyesight, wife-beating, alcohol ism, and an inability to chaw utility grade beef. If Congress could just pass a law making it illegal for any, one to have toothache, things ought to start getting better right away, whether the Senate confirms the San Francisco Pearly Gate charter or no.
 The three stalwart statesmen who have been bold enough to fill in the cavity, bridge the gap, touch the nerve center and get their teeth into this bleeding gum of situation are the Honorable James E. Murray of Montana, the Honorable Pepper of Florida, and the Honorable George T. Aiken, of Vermont. This gives the cause 8 strictly non-partisan, 50-50 backing = two Democrats to one Republican.
 RESEARCH INSTITUTE
 PROPOSED
 Senator Murray's proposal is to spend million bucks to establish a National Institute of Dental Re- search and then appropriate an- other $730,000 8 year to keep it go- ing. This would be cheap. Many's the man who has said, "I'd give $1,- 730,000 to be rid of this blankety blank blanXety bicuspid.' Well, here's law which would do the trick. Dental research, of course, is what the tooth carpenter does when he starts pokin' around. The Mur- ray bnl would simply put this pokin' on more scientific basis, to get the cause of toothaches, then extract the causes
 Senators Pepper and Aiken, joint ly, have 8 supplementary bill which would appropriate federal money for grants-in-aid to States and local governments SO they could estab- fish and maintain adequate meas ures for the prevention, treatment, and control of such (dentaD dis eases, including dental-care pro- grams for children, the training of personnel for State and local den- tai health work, and the develop ment and maintenance of effective means for the education of the pub lie concerning dental disease" :" There's a mouthful for you to test your new store teeth on.
 Hearings on both these bills were held before the Senate Committee on Education and Labor this week. What there is educational about a toothache is hard to figure, but you've got to admit it's labor.
 Surgeon General Thomas w. Par ran of the U. S. Public Health Serv- ice estimates that the cost Of the Pepper-Aiken bill would be only about $6,000,000 the second year and maybe $10,000,00 year thereafter. That's about what is spent now on T. B. and venereal disease control. RECONVERSION SUGGESTION
 But think what a postwar em- ployment project this dental care business might become. Think of all those idle machine tools at Willow Run that could be move right into dentists offices. Better still, why not convert Willow Run into the Insti- ute of Dental Research? Instead of making Liberators to kill people with, the big Ford plant could be used to liberate mankind from all that suffering. Dental work on the assembly line. Oh, boy! A new set or uppers and lowers every six sec- onds..
 Think, too, of all the individual WPA projects that could be fin- anced by those grants-in-aid. A San Francisco Bay bridge in every mouth. A use for all that gold buried in Kentucky. Jobs for the millions of displaced boilermakers and riveters in shipyard and air plane plants.
 Wire your Congressman now to get behind these bills and bear down -Ouch!-but not too hard.