To Dr. Bracken from Dr. Flick
Philadelphia,
November 7, 1903
My dear Dr. Bracken:
Your letter of 3rd inst. with enclosure to hand. I thank you very much for the enclosure.
Dr. Daniel Lewis called on me on Nov. 4th and I had a long talk with him. I assured him that the Henry Phipps Institute would do nothing to interfere with his plans for the Congress on Tuberculosis and that if he succeeded in getting up a Congress for 1905 we would do nothing to bring the International Congress here in 1905 but would aim to bring it here in 1906. I told Dr. Lewis however that I could not associate myself with his plan and that the Henry Phipps Institute would absolutely remain neutral as between him and Clark Bell. I told him further that I did not believe he would succeed in bringing together the men who had done the work in this country on Tuberculosis because up to the present time he had practically ignored them. It didn't seem quite logical that the men who have done the work in tuberculosis should be brought together in convention by men who have done nothing in that line and to be subsidiary to them. Dr. Lewis showed me his list of names and in the entire list there were but two men who had ever done anything in tuberculosis or had in any way been associated with tuberculosis work. Although Dr. Lewis had been apparently working on his Congress for a year very few tuberculosis men had known anything about it. I have assured Dr. Lewis, however, that the Henry Phipps Institute will under no circumstances interfere with his work nor would it embarrass him by setting up an opposition. We will pursue our course of education and endeavor to stimulate effort everywhere we can. The plans which we began a year ago of course cannot be laid down and will be worked out, namely: of correlating the efforts of tuberculosis workers as far as possible and aiding every man in the field who wants aid.
We cannot permit medical politics of any kind to creep into our plans and will absolutely stand aloof from anything that savours of politics. We are making a card index of the workers on tuberculosis in this country and hope to have a record of every man's standing so far as it is available, in the near future. If it any time these men wish to come together under our auspices to confer about their work we shall be glad to entertain them, and our future action in matters of conventions and congresses will be governed largely by the consensus of opinion of these men. So far as New York State is concerned we must look to Trudeau and Biggs for suggestions and will largely be governed by what they have to say. I told Dr. Lewis that these two gentlemen were the New Yorkers who ought to represent that State prominently in any tentative movement that might be undertaken.
Yours truly,
Lawrence F. Flick