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Congressional Gold Medal Recipient
Mary
Woodard Lasker (1900-1994)
Remarks on Presenting the Congressional Gold Medal to Mary Lasker April 21, 1989
The President. Welcome, Mrs. Lasker. Mr. Speaker, it's nice to have you back. Distinguished Members of Congress -- pleased to greet Congressmen Early and Conte and our other friends who are here. And a very special welcome, Tip, to you, sir. You've heard me talk about a Thousand Points of Light, a metaphor that I've used to celebrate the extraordinary selflessness of Americans who give so much to the service of others. And we're here today to honor a veritable beacon of light, a woman who has focused an enormous amount of energy on finding solutions to life-threatening diseases, Mary Lasker. She's president of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation, which she started with her husband in 1942 to encourage medical research and to raise public awareness of major diseases which cripple and kill. Today the Lasker Foundation's Medical Research Award is one of the most prestigious honors in American medicine. Mary's contribution to medicine -- they've not stopped with the important work of the Lasker Foundation.
Dr. Jonas Salk said: ``When I think of Mary Lasker, I think of a matchmaker between science and society.'' Business Week magazine called her the fairy godmother of medical research. And she's worked extensively in many diverse causes, from supporting cancer research to preventing heart disease to working with those with cerebral palsy -- and believe me, I am only naming a few here. And the list is so long because her good works and tireless efforts are legion. And I cannot resist a special word of thanks and praise for Mary's leadership here in Washington. Senator Claude Pepper calls Mary the driving force behind the creation of the National Cancer Institute, the first of the National Institutes of Health, and of subsequent institutes. Her generosity and association with NIH continues today. Her work in urging legislation to expand Federal cancer research culminated in a 1971 bill that made the conquest of cancer a national goal. In 1984 Congress honored Mary Lasker by naming a center for her out at NIH: the Mary Woodard Lasker Center for Health Research and Education. Not only is she well-known for advancing medical research but for her contributions to the arts and for her many public plantings that allow others to share her love of flowers. Through the Society for a More Beautiful Capital, she's donated extensive plantings in Washington, including over a million daffodil bulbs for Rock Creek Park and Lady Bird Johnson Park. Mary, your gifts of health and beauty have left the country very much in your debt. In 1987 it was with gratitude and great pride that the United States Congress voted to honor your humanitarian contributions to the areas of medical research and education, urban beautification, and the fine arts. Now it is my pleasure to thank you on behalf of the Nation and to present you with this token of our gratitude, the Mary Woodard Lasker
Congressional Gold Medal. Congratulations.
Mrs. Lasker. Mr. President, ``thank you'' is much too small a word to describe this honor. Without your help and that of Congress, no success would be possible. This medal belongs to so many people, for the triumph and hope that medical research brought to this country. Mr. President, you know how and why medical research is so important. We look to you now, Mr. President, for leadership in helping to support research at the National Institutes of Health. Cancer still kills 500,000 people a year in this country -- more people than have been killed in all our wars combined. The strength of our nation depends on the health of our people. This medal recognizes the priority which we must once again place on research. It's good for trade, good for jobs, and vital for all
Americans. Medical research is our hope for our children and for the building of a healthy America. Thank you. Note: The President spoke at 2:59 p.m. in the Rose Garden at the White House. In his remarks, he referred to Jim Wright, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr., former Speaker of the House of Representatives.
1987 Mary Lasker Mary Lasker and her husband started the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation, where scientists try to make better medicines and find ways to help people stay healthy. She was especially interested in finding cures for cancer. She also has had a pink tulip named after her because of the way she worked to beautify New York City and Washington, D.C. Mary Lasker's medal honors her for this work, for educating people, and for helping artists. Mary Lasker (1990-1994) was a businesswoman prior to her marriage to the advertising executive and philanthropist, Albert Davis Lasker 1880-1952 in 1940. With her help Lasker re-ordered his life and priorities, together they shared a life centering on philanthropic work. They founded the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation which gives awards in the fields of medical research and public health administration. Mary Lasker had a strong interest in the arts, civic beautification reproductive planning dress design and health issues specifically cancer and heart disease. She was actively involved with the promotion and development of national bodies dealing with cancer heart disease arthritis mental health neurological disease and blindness. She was an able and effective Washington lobbyist and knew many statesmen legislators artists and scientific pioneers. Lasker was decorated chevalier officer French Legion of Honor and in 1969 she received the
Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Lasker Foundation Mary Lasker's LBJ Connections LBJ's Lasker Foundation Award for Public Service, 1965.
LBJ Lasker Award / Lasker Foundation Mary Lasker's connections with LBJ were reportedly the closest she had with any president during her fifty years of behind-the-scenes rule. Johnson's first speech on health research in 1959 was actually written by Lasker lobbyist Mike Gorman (Drew, 1967). "In the early 1960s Johnson had traveled to New York to enlist socialite Mary Lasker in his campaign to win Eleanor Roosevelt's endorsement... Lasker met the same skepticism [as she had with Roosevelt] when she approached Dorothy Schiff, publisher of the New York Post. 'It was very hard to convince people that he was a genuine liberal, as I was sure he was,' Lasker recalled. Had Johnson spent more time courting liberals like Roosevelt and Schiff, Lasker believed that 'he could have convinced them. But he was too busy as majority leader, and the convincing couldn't be done secondhand.'" (The Walls of Jericho, by Robert Mann. 1996 Harcourt Brace & Co. p. 270.) White House tapes released by the LBJ Presidential Library show that her contact with the new administration began as early as December 11, 1963, less than a month after JFK's assassination.
About Albert & Mary Lasker
Like her passion for medical research, Mrs. Lasker's interest in urban beautification was long standing. In a 1953 column in The New York Times, Meyer Berger referred to her affectionately as "Annie Appleseed".
Her activities included plantings of tulips, daffodils, begonias, chrysanthemums and other flowers at various settings in New York, lighted Christmas trees on Park Avenue and 300 Japanese cherry trees planted at the United Nations.
Mrs. Lasker acquired her interest in parks and gardens during her girlhood in Watertown, Wis., where she was born to Frank Elwin Woodard, a banker, and Sara Johnson Woodard, who was a founder of two parks in Watertown.
She graduated cum laude from Racliffe College in 1923 and studied briefly at Oxford. Then she went to work for the Reinhardt Galleries, in Manhattan, where her duties were, as she later put it, "arranging benefit loan exhibitions of outstanding old and modern French masters and selling pictures to collectors and museums".
An Art Collector She also built an art collection of her own, which included works by Miro, Renoir, Cezanne and Dali. She sold most of the collection years later when she changed Manhattan homes, partly, as she said, "because I wanted to give away the money." In the photo to the right, Salvador Dali sketches Mrs. Lasker.
In 1940, after leaving the art-gallery world, she married Mr. Lasker, who had achieved wealth and eminence as an advertising executive, having joined the Lord & Thomas advertising agency in 1898 and becoming its owner in 1908.
Two years later, he retired from active business and the Lasker Foundation was established. In addition, drawing on his own experience in public affairs, he encouraged Mrs. Lasker to press the Federal government to provide more funds for medical research. Her efforts in that direction led to the creation of the National Institute of Health, the world's leader in medical research and a national treasure.
Won Presidential Medal Mrs. Lasker is often credited with growth of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD, currently operating with a $19 billion budget. "The N.I.H. has flowered," Dr. DeBakey recalled in the 1985 interview, "because in many ways she gave birth to it and nursed it. It was in existence, but it was she who got the funding for it."
Over the years, Mrs. Lasker also served as a trustee or director of a number of organizations and institutions, including the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Museum of Modern Art, the Norton Simon Museum, New York University and Braniff Airways.
She was awarded the
Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969, a
Congressional Gold Medal in 1989, and other honors. A Health Sciences Chair at the Harvard School of Public Health was named for her in 1989, and a new variety of pink tulip was named for her in 1985. In 1982, she was awarded the Lord & Taylor Rose Award by Dorothy Shaver, President of the department store, Lord & Taylor. You can view a video of the presentation ceremonies by clicking
here. The video has been digitized from a very old tape of the ceremonies. Dorothy Shaver presents the award and comments on the life of Mary Lasker.
Below is a picture of Mary Lasker and New York City Mayor Ed Koch from the Lasker Archives.
Eleanor Roosevelt Letter to Mary D. Lasker August 15, 1960 Dear Mary: I had a talk with Senator Kennedy yesterday - an hour alone during lunch, and at the very end he called in Mr. Walton for a few minutes before going over to address the Golden Ring Clubs. I want to report that at the airport he was met by a very large group and the enthusiasm was great. I did not go myself to meet him but sent Edna and David. Edna circulated among the people and asked them if they were Democrats or just curiosity seekers. Almost invariably they answered they were Democrats. The enthusiasm at the big house was tremendous, and I think he made a very good speech on the expansion of Social Security. I did not ask the Senator for any definite promise as I felt that this would be almost impossible. But I told him that he needed the Stenvenson votes in New York and California and that he had to carry these two states or he would be in trouble because he probably could not hold the solid South. This was brought about by his telling me that he had not realized before the fragmentation of the Democratic party and the fact that the majority in Congress did not give the leadership that holds the party together, and that since my husband's time there was no unity. The newly elected governor of Florida came in to see him and said: "I want you to know that I am a conservative, I am against integration, and I am for the Right-to-Work Law". Whereupon Sen. Kennedy said: "Why don't you join the Republicans?"! I gather that his understanding of the difficulties of the campaign that face him have matured him in a short time. He told me that he had phoned Adlai this past week and asked him to set up a small group to do research in the area of foreign policy. I told him that this was not enough, that he would have to give the people who were for Adlai the assurance that they were working together. All of us know that unless Adlai felt their philosophies were similar he would not accept the Secretary of State post. Therefore, I felt that he had to prove by working in the campaign and appearing on the same platforms, and perhaps by references and quotation, that there was close cooperation. Bringing both Chester Bowles and Adlai in whenever he could would mean that these were the men he was counting on for advice. He agreed and said he would try to do this. We then spoke about Chester Bowles and he said he had asked Chester not to resign. I had had a letter Saturday from Chester in which he gave me his reasons for resigning. He said he thought Adlai was the best man for the Secretary of State post, that he (Chet) would rather be in the executive than the legislative branch, so he would rather work for Kennedy than be a candidate for Congress. Kennedy likes Chester Bowles and finds him easy to work with. He also seems to realize that his own mind is so quick he may perhaps be hasty in making decisions and he needs Adlai there. Now, I have no promises from him, but I have the distinct feeling that he is planning to work closely with Adlai. I also had the feeling that here was a man who could learn. I liked him better than I ever had before because he seemed so little cock-sure, and I think he has a mind that is open to new ideas. I agreed that I would go on the citizens committee here as honorary chairman, and that I would do what I could here. Whether I would take any trips or become more involved will depend on whether or not I am happy with the way he progresses as a person in the campaign. My final judgement is that here is a man who wants to leave a record (perhaps for ambitious personal reasons, as people say) but I rather think because he really is interested in helping the people of his own country and mankind in general. I will be surer of this as time goes on, but I think I am not mistaken in feeling that he would make a good President if elected. Much love, and I hope this report will help you make up your mind. Affectionately, (signed)
Eleanor Roosevelt (Mrs. F. D. Roosevelt) Mrs. Albert D. Lasker
Villa Fiorentina et Jean
Cap Ferrat, France
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