To Dr. Ravenel from Dr. Flick
Philadelphia,
October 28, 1903
My dear Dr. Ravenel:
Your two letters of yesterday as also the programme of the American Public Health Association to hand. I regret that it is not possible for me to go to Washington. I have been exceedingly hard-pressed with work all week and in addition to my ordinary work have a distant consultation today and one for tomorrow. Both of these cases are acute and the appointments cannot be postponed.
Judging from what you have written me I am inclined to think that perhaps it would be better after all for us to drop the subject of the Congress on Tuberculosis at present and to say nothing about our desire to organize the workers in tuberculosis of this country. I am thoroughly convinced that if the men who have had to do with the Tuberculosis Congress of the past are allowed to have their way they will soon exhaust themselves and drop the whole subject. With the record which the Congress has made for itself there's no possibility of rehabilitating it. Even if new men went into the movement they would have to use some other name in order to escape the odium with which the old name has covered itself. We have ample time to wait and it will be much better for us not to be tangled up with the old movement or with the men who have had to do with it. Of course I shall be very glad to meet Dr. Lewis and any of the men concerned, but under no circumstances can I be associated with the movement which has to do with the old Congress on Tuberculosis.
Everything is going well at the Phipps. I have been going there once a day and have tried to keep up with the work, but there is some correspondence accumulating which I shall have to leave for you.
Yours truly,
Lawrence F. Flick