THEY ALWAYS STOOD TOGETHER
They Always Stood Together THE TIME has come for plain thinking and plain speaking. For forty years a contest has been, waged in Wisconsin between two political groups s the Progressives anil the...
...It cost five to six millions of dollars to send the Shenandoah on one trip across the United States, and this trip, according to experts, was in the nature of an experiment, a sort of joyride, which resulted in frightful destruction of human life...
...There has been splendid cooperation on the part of the State Board of Health, the State Department of Public Instruction, State Board of Vocational Education and the State Board of Normal Regents...
...Many an ambitious girl who might otherwise be obliged to drop school can continue her education by assisting mothers a few hours each day...
...Every man and woman who holds the principles and ideals of this movement at heart, will be out to vote on primary day, and will see that every voter in their community goes to the polls...
...To be certain that every girl receives the instruction, this course in infant hygiene is given before they arrive at the compulsory school age...
...Paid agents of the Republican National Committee and an army of postmasters, marshals, district attorneys and other job-holders placed on the federal payroll by the Coolidge administration, have literally swarmed in Wisconsin for two years, drumming up support for reactionary candidates and attempting to sow seeds of dissension in the Progressive ranks...
...They have shown a disposition to win at any price...
...Yet there Is scarcely a candidate running for office who does not claim to be "Progressive," and most of them claim to be "La Foilette Progressive...
...Think of the money and propaganda expended by the government on military training camps...
...Indeed, this double dealing on the part of the Eeactionaries has gone so far that in the present campaign we are confronted with a candidate for Governor claiming to be a "La Follette Progressive," who is accepting the support of Stalwart newspapers and influences which denounced Senator La Follette as a traitor, attempted to drive him from public life, and which bitterly fought every Progressive measure and candidate for forty years...
...And what benefit to the mothers of the country when it is so difficult to get trained help...
...May such brave and true leaders develop that the people will not be led astray...
...From One of the Old Faithful Dear Mrs...
...There are thou-sands la each who honestly believe in their principles...
...The fundamental problem as to which shall rule, men or property, is still unsettled...
...We are hoping that Wisconsin will elect men at this crucial hour whose work in the past will be ample guarantee that in the future they will support Progressive principles and fight for the fundamentals for which Senator La Follette always stood...
...In the political history of Wisconsin, there has never been a Progressive who played this desperate and double dealing game without eventually going over lock, stock, and barrel to the Reactionaries...
...Harper points out that while 48,-000 soldiers were lost during the 19 months participation in the world war, during that same period of time 300,-000 infants under one year of age and 39,000 mothers died...
...The teaching of mothercraft in the schools is not new, but Wisconsin is the first to incorporate such a course in the educational system of the State...
...It was with great satisfaction that I found on further investigation how practically and excellently this work, instituted under the provisions of the so-called Sheppard-Towner Act for the Welfare of Maternity and Infancy, was being carried out in Wisconsin...
...it will require the highest qualities of heroism, the pro-foundest devotion to duty in this and the coming generations to reconstruct our institutions to meet the requirements of a new age...
...Think what it will mean to future mothers and babies and to the health of the race...
...I trust you will pardon the intrusion of this letter from an old man, whose chief pride is that he was an humble member of the "Old Guard," in the good old fighting days in Wisconsin...
...C. A. Harper, who has been State Health Officer of Wisconsin for many years, has recently written a very capable and exhaustive treatise in the form of a letter addressed to an official of the American Medical Association, in which he makes a powerful argument for the Maternity Law as administered by the federal and state government...
...Blind though they be to the sanctity of the ballot, to the rights, the welfare and the conscience of the American people, these corrupt interests know the value of a dollar...
...It is up to the women voters of the United States to push the campaign for the continuance of suitable state and national appropriations for the most significant experiment in education which has been made in hundreds of years...
...The Reactionaries have been present in Wisconsin for forty years...
...More recently, the people have learned how the public utility interests of Illinois and neighboring commonwealths financed the candidates—of both parties —in the primary in the state of Abraham Lincoln...
...Through the whole period of reaction under the Harding-Coolidge-Mellon regime, Wisconsin alone has maintained almost a solid delegation of Progressive Representatives in the lower House of Congress...
...He very courteously insisted on my having a seat on the stage and I took full advantage of the opportunity to hear every word and watch every gesture...
...And what a keen awakening of interest in all that pertains to infancy...
...And Wisconsin—the state that has led the hosts and held the lines in triumph— will not surrender that position just at the time when reinforcements are coming up and victory looms on the horizon...
...This is the challenge the people of Wisconsin must meet in the primary election on September 7. A nation awaits, with confidence and hope, Wisconsin's answer...
...Every girl who enters the Milwaukee Vocational School (the largest one of its kind in the world) is required to take this instruction in infant hygiene...
...If Wisconsin—the home of the Progressive movement—could be led like a penitent back into the lockstep of "reg-ular" Republicanism, it would provide a Roman holiday for the plunderbund, worth more than all the governmental favors that can be wrung from corporate agents in office in a dozen other states...
...There is scarcely a community in this state where the leading stalwarts will not be found secretly or openly supporting this alleged Progressive...
...Harper concludes: "There is no doubt in the minds of experienced public health officials that the greatest need in the United States at the present time is a larger effort and a more constructive educational program for the purpose of safeguarding maternity and infants...
...It would set back the cause many years...
...Iowa, the Dakotas and, earlier, Minnesota and Nebraska, have made their voices heard at Washington and sent to the Senate men free to serve their people, regardless of any private interest or any party machine...
...Barron, Wis., Aug...
...The lesson we liked the best," she said, "was bathing the baby...
...Have the people of this State ever known a time when the Janesville Gazette, the Whitewater Register, the Kenosha News, the DuPont Powder Trust and similar influences have ever supported or extended courtesies to a REAL Progressive ? No man can serve Reaction and Progress...
...What could be more significant in education than this recognition of the prime importance of training future mothers...
...Since 1920 a group of leaders of the Stalwart faction have evidenced lack of political principle...
...No man can accept the support of TWO sides of a great contest and fulfill his obligations to both...
...The failure of Congress to respond to this training for safeguard-ing the life and health of mothers and guarding infants was due partly to prejudice and partly to the campaign cry of "economy...
...And in our children must we rest our hope for the ultimate democracy...
...The Progressives of Wisconsin must remember that the late Senator La Fol-lette belonged to the nation as well as to the state...
...The daily, weekly and farm press of the state, with a few notable exceptions, has been for two years, and is now, practically a unit in support of the candidates who are pledged openly or in secret to faithful service of the same great interests that have subsidized the press through the power of advertising...
...If Wisconsin, within 15 months after La Follette's death, in the first general primary in the state, should take a backward step, it would bring discouragement to every Progressive under the flag...
...Vital statistics show that Wisconsin has the lowest maternity death rate of 36 states in the registration area...
...candidates who have OPENLY and PUBLICLY declared themselves in a written declaration of principles...
...Every Wisconsin girl educated for intelligent motherhood," is the slogan...
...If it can be shown that Wisconsin is a happier and a better state to live in, that its institutions are more democratic, that the opportunities of all its people are more equal, that social justice more nearly prevails, that human life is safer and sweeter, then I shall rest content...
...The Stakes in the Wisconsin Campaign MEN and women of Wisconsin, as this is written, are about to go to the polls in the Republican primaries of September 7 to cast a vote that, like the salvo of the Revolutionary patriots at Lexington, will be "heard round the world...
...Very respectfully yours, H. S. COM STOCK...
...Our young helper's story of her lessons pointed out a new solution of an old problem...
...It is a well known fact that girls who leave school early are the girls most apt to marry young...
...And much of this terrible waste of human life might have been saved by simple instruction in prevention...
...They have been willing to fly false colors, to clothe themselves in the uniform of their opponents In order to obtain votes by deceit and misrepresentation...
...And I want it to be judged as it will ultimately be, by results actually attained...
...With the future of the Progressive movement in the state of its origin at stake in this campaign, it is scarcely strange that six of the bravest fighters for the public interest at Washington from other states: Norris and Howell of Nebraska, Wheeler of Montana, Ship-stead of Minnesota, and Frazier and Nye of North Dakota, "have appealed to the people of Wisconsin to "keep the faith...
...how much we value intelligent and reliable help in the household where there is an infant...
...The unthinking may ignore the momentous importance of the choice Wisconsin makes September 7th, but the despoilers of the people do not underestimate it...
...It is shocking to reflect that with all the indisputable evidence of the value and effectiveness of the maternity and infancy act, the last Congress refused to grant continuance of the small appropriation of $11,240,000 which has been spent annually over a period of five years in its administration...
...For forty years a contest has been, waged in Wisconsin between two political groups s the Progressives anil the Reactionaries...
...This is only a part of the combination that is working for the defeat of Governor John J. Blaine for the Senate, Attorney General Herman L. Ekern for Governor, and every candidate for state and federal office who stands on the principles and program of the Progressive platform of June 14, pledging continuance of the movement founded and led for 30 years by the late Senator La Foilette...
...The equipment for this demonstration includes a doll the size of a baby two months old, a basket bed and its accessories, and all articles for giving a bath, together with the baby clothes which are an open front layette...
...The course, however, is given in Wisconsin from the grade schools to college...
...The campaign to seize control of the state government, through frank reactionaries, if possible, and through men masquerading as "sane Progressives," if necessary, to re-elect a "regular" Senator, and to defeat the Progressive Representatives who have served the people of state and nation at Washington, has been under way continually in Wisconsin ever since the election of 1924...
...And such a calamity would be hailed with joy in the reactionary camp, where it has always been claimed that this great movement in Wisconsin has been mere personal idolatry and has not involved fundamental principles...
...Harper points out in his letter, many mothers and children are crippled, maimed, and live in misery—chronic invalid:, because of failure of instruction to mothers and families which would prevent such inefficiency, needless suffering and expense to the home and society...
...In recent months the people have learned from a committee of the United States Senate the sordid story of how the great trusts and monopolies of Pennsylvania openly acknowledged the expenditure of $3,000,000 to nominate Republican candidates in a primary for the senatorship and the governorship of that state...
...He was a great national leader...
...And the plunderbund has stood and today stands ready to pay the price for its victory...
...It has been, in our minds, the cradle of the larger freedom and democracy for which Senator La Follette fought and for which he died...
...I never heard a more logical and masterly political address, and I am not ashamed to say that as I listened to him and watched his every motion, tears filled my eyes for I saw his father re-incarnated in his son...
...18, 1926...
...also the most spontaneous and joyful response to this work is found in the young girls before they reach the self-conscious adolescent period...
...We have always regarded Wisconsin as an example of true governmental progress...
...After the great betrayal by the admin-istration elected in 1912 to "break the grip of monopoly," and re-elect in 1916 "to keep us out of war," Wisconsin has survived as the only state in the Union continuously under a Progressive state government...
...Make no mistake of the consequences, if this warning goes unheeded...
...I had seen him but once in twenty years, probably at the Chicago convention in 1916, and recalled him chiefly as the manly little fellow I had known about the G6vernor's office in the old days...
...The people of Wisconsin can yield on primary day to this combination which plots the overthrow of Progressive government in its stronghold, but they cannot do it without going back on Wisconsin's finest traditions and her high destiny...
...They are still here...
...How glad we are to get enlightenment on this oldest of problems,—the care of the baby...
...We Progressives of other states look to Wisconsin as the home of the Progressive movement...
...With great wisdom and statesmanship she sought the cooperation of the powerful women's organizations of the Nation which as is well recognized, secured the enactment of the Sheppard-Towner law...
...Expect Wisconsin to Lead BY GEORGE W. NORRIS [United States Senator from Nebraska] THE election of "regular" or "mild progressive" candidates to important offices in Wisconsin— the home of the Progressive movement —would discourage every Progressive in the nation...
...Looking for such help in the care of Robert M. La Foilette, the Third, we discovered that right in our own neighborhood there were several young girls caring for babies during their summer vacation as a result of a course in infant hygiene which is being taught in the public schools of Wisconsin...
...Again in 1926, as in 1922, the people of this great Northwest are astir...
...And I believe all these things can readily be shown, and that there is no reason why the movement should not expand until it covers the entire nation...
...For it was out of the revolt against entrenched corporate power and corrupt politics, waged in Wisconsin beginning 30 years ago, that there came the direct primary with the whole system of wider opportunity and greater liberty for the masses of common men and women, the control of railroads and public utilities in the public interest, and principles of taxation of great incomes and inheritances, which blazed the way for other states for a generation preceding the World War...
...It will mean to Wisconsin and the Nation that the Progressive movement is going forward...
...At a time when corrupt interests are out to destroy the direct primary system in every state in the Union, when trusts and monopolies ride rough-shod over a servile administration at Washington, when these interests control every policy of the federal government on taxation, tariff and agriculture, the people of Wisconsin are not going to beat a retreat...
...There is instruction in bottle feeding, including some work in formulas...
...Even if we are not moved by the waste and loss of human life, we should be glad of this line of educational advance in our schools...
...Our girls are learning a helpful occupation of great value in the home which is also an asset in earning power while they are attending school...
...It has been a fight supremely worth making—this struggle in Wisconsin," said Senator La Foilette at a time not unlike the present...
...Millions of people who have never been permitted to learn the true significance of this Wisconsin experiment in democracy, nevertheless will feel the incalculable results of the campaign which now approaches an issue at the polls...
...In my opinion, the best interests of the Progressive movement can be served by the nomination and election of Progressive candidates who neither expect nor accept the support of their enemies...
...Each of these represents a different and opposite political philosophy...
...These candidates are: Herman L. Ekern for Governor, Henry A. Huber for Lieutenant Governor, Theodore Dammann for Secretary of State, Solomon Levitan for State Treasurer, John W. Reynolds for Attorney General, and John J. Blaine for United States Senator...
...No real American denies anyone the right to believe in and advocate his convictions, but no honest person believes in or favors trickery or hypocrisy...
...New Solution of Help Problem WHAT JOY and happiness a new born baby in the family bring...
...The benefit and happiness which will result from this program are wonderful to contemplate...
...Nearly every large city and many rural districts of the state are giving their girls this work...
...He will disappoint or betray one or the other...
...It was Julia Lathrop, the first chief of the Children's Bureau, who conceived the plan and concentrated to a large degree the efforts of her administration for many years on the basic problems of maternity and infancy...
...We should bear in mind that the mortality statistics of mothers and infants do not show the enormous amount of suffering and sickness incident to ignorance and neglect, As Dr...
...La Follette: I had the pleasure of listening to your son, Senator Robert M. La Follette, Jr., at Rice Lake, on Friday of last week...
...The nomination and election of these candidates will, in my judgment, mean the forging ahead of the Progressive movement on a great constructive program...
Vol. 18 • September 1926 • No. 9
