The daily monitor leader. [volume] (Mount Clemens, Mich.) 1942-19??, 1945-09-25
. BEHIND THE SCENES
IN WASHINGTON .
thing that everybody can under
stand-toothache.


This is getting right down to
the decayed root of all evils
lumbago, loss of sleep, distemper,
bad grades. Indebtedness, absen-
teeism, poor eyesight, wife-beat-
ing, alcoholism, and an inability
to .chaw utility grade beef. II
Congress could just pass law
making it illegal for anyone to
have a toothache, things ought
to start getting better right away,
whether the Senate confirms the
San Francisco Pearly Gate char
ter 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 a situation are the Hon.
James E. Murray of Montana,
the Hon. Claude Pepper of Flori-
da, and the Hon. George T. Ak
en- of Vermont. This gives the
cause a strictly non-partisan, So
so backing-two Democrats to
one Republican.
RESEARCH INSTITUTE
PROPOSED
Senator Murray's proposal Is
TO spend a million bucks to estab-
lish a National Institute of Den
tai Research and then appropri-
ate another $730,O00 a year to
keep it going. This would be
cheap. Manys the man who has
said, I'D give $l,730,0O0 to be
rid of this blankcty blank blank
blankety bicuspid." Well, here's
a law which would do the trick.
Dental research, of course, is
what the tooth carpenter does
when starts pokin' around. The
Murray bill would simply put
this pokin' on a more scientific
basis, to get at the cause of tooth
aches, then extract the causes.
Senators Pepper and Aiken,
jointly, have a supplementary
bill which would appropriate
federal money for grants-in-aid
to States and local governments
so they could establish and main
tain adequate measures for the
prevention, treatment, and con-
troll of such (dentaD diseases,
including dental-care programs
for children. the training of per-
sonnet for State and local dental
health work, and the develop
ment and maintenance of effec-
tive means for the education of
the public concerning dental di-
sease." 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.
Parran of the u. S. Public Health
Service estimates that the cost of
the Pepper Aiken bill would be
only about $6,000,OO0 the second
year and maybe $10,000,000 a
year thereafter. That's about
what is spent now on T. B. and
venereal disease control.
RECONVERSION SUGGESTION
But think what postwar en-
ployment this dental care bust
ness might become. Think of all
those idle machine tools at Will
low Run that could be moved
right into dentists offices. Better
still, why not convert Willow
Run into the Institute 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 of uppers and lowers every
six seconds.
Think, too, of all the individ-
ual WPA projects that could be
financed 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 boil
ermakers and riveters in ship
yard and airplane plants.
Wire your Congressman now
to get behind these bills and bear
down-Ouch!-but not too hard