Today in History – 24/25 January

Refik Saydam becomes prime minister

Following Prime Minister Celal Bayar’s resignation, İsmet İnönü appointed İstanbul Deputy Refik Saydam with the task of establishing the new government. On 25 January 1939, Saydam formed the 11th Government of the Turkish Republic. Refik Saydam’s council of ministers included Ali Rana Tarhan (Minister of Customs and Monopolies), Tevfik Fikret Sılay (Minister of Justice), Naci Tınaz (Minister of National Defense), Faik Öztrak (Minister of the Interior), Şükrü Saracoğlu (Minister of Foreign Affairs), Fuat Ağralı (Minister of Finance), Hüseyin Hüsnü Çakır (Minister of Economy), Hasan Âli Yücel (Minister of National Education), Ali Çetinkaya (Minister of Public Works), Ahmet Hulûsi Alataş (Minister of Public Health and Welfare), and Reşat Muhlis Erkmen (Minister of Agriculture).

A military doctor by training, Refik Saydam had set foot in Samsun alongside Atatürk on 19 May 1919. The first minister of public health in the new Turkish Republic, Saydam also served as the minister of the interior, the general secretary of CHO, and the president of the Red Crescent Society for 15 years after Atatürk’s death. Refik Saydam, whose famous line, “State administration is flawed from A to Z” has been used like an aphorism throughout generations, had many accomplishments in the field of healthcare during the early years of the Republic. Saydam once said, “The economic prosperity and development of our country can only be made possible if our level of culture progresses in parallel with it… Raising physically and spiritually strong Turkish children with impeccable morals and a strong dedication to their nation, country, the Republic and its reforms, is the primary objective of our ministry.”

Refik Saydam died on 8 July 1942, as he was looking for solutions to the increasingly worsening problems of malnutrition in İstanbul during the years of World War II.