COPY.
May 8, 1907.
My dear Professor Fisher:
I sent you my public letter. I wish to put one proviso about its being used, however. I emphatically disapprove of a Cabinet officer being created at the head of a Department of Health, and I would not be willing to have my letter used create feeling for a new Cabinet officer to be at the head of a Department of Health. So please do not use my letter at all if your body conclude to agitate for a Department of Health. I believe that we could with advantage have a Bureau of Health, to be put under one of the existing Departments, but we need no additional Cabinet officers. On the contrary, they would be a disadvantage. While we do most urgently need a rearrangement of the bureaus and divisions of the present Cabinet, we also need to have every executive officer of the Government put under some Cabinet officer. I am utterly against the creation of any independent bureau not under a Cabinet officer.
(Signed) Theodore Roosevelt
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