WOULD DESTROY MATERNITY LAW WORK
Follette, Belle Case La
Would Destroy Maternity Law Work Sheppard-Towner Act to be of No Force and Effect After 1929. Situation Demands United Efforts to Replace Law By BELLE CASE LA FOLLETTE I N JANUARY 13 the United...
...Mother's love will not prevent blindness in infants, will not insure vitamins in the diet, will not ward off rickets...
...Nearly 100,000 American babies die in the first month of life...
...The State plans are, in consequence, different not only in detail but in general scope...
...V' In the course of the recent debate in the senate, Senator Reed of Missouri said: "It occurs to me that if I were a woman and were rearing children, I would rather have the advice of soVne good old mother of Israel who had reared some children than of some woman who had never had any experience at all...
...It is conceded that the experiment has been a remarkable success...
...Parents avail themselves of their own free will of the privilege of consulting the clinics and visits of nurses to their homes...
...In zxx and menageries, the keepers know that, if they want peace from the tigers, they must give them water often...
...but I would rather have the advice of a skilled physician than either of them if he were a really skilled physician...
...The funds appropriated have been wisely and faithfully administered...
...Nevertheless, we go forward with these things, forgetful of the fact that coming down through the ages when men and women wore the skins of wild beasts, when they fought interminable and endless wars, when savagery was rife, there was always one divine spot in the world and that was in the mother's heart and the mother's love has reared all the races of man, and can be trusted to continue to rear them...
...I well remember the struggle—leng since forgotten—in Congress over the establishment of these Experiment Stations...
...It is all very well to say consult the doctor...
...But among the activities common to all may be mentioned the maintenance of child health centers for mothers and babies, prenatal conferences for expectant mothers, home visits by doctors or nurses, education through literature, lectures, classes, movies, etc...
...Situation Demands United Efforts to Replace Law By BELLE CASE LA FOLLETTE I N JANUARY 13 the United States Senate passed the appropriation for the Maternity and Infancy Act, otherwise known as the Shep-pard-Towner Law...
...Reaction is Wonderful MRS...
...He is a powerful debater...
...Fortunately, the amendment to the Maternity and Infancy Act which automatically puts the Act out of existence in 1929 does not apply to the Children's Bureau...
...They seem to take these thoughts very seriously...
...improvement in breeds of farm animals, advancement of scientific dairying...
...They are very intelligent people and have cooperated splendidly with our committee...
...It was provided that no part of the million-dollar fund should be paid until it was matched by a like sum from the State receiving the appropriation...
...It is a mark of progress that intelligent niothers who can afford it do consult their family physician throughout pregnancy and child birth...
...If some of the major appropriation bills like the Army and Navy, for instance, are defeated, the President may call an extra session of Congress to enact the appropriations...
...National Council of Jewish Women, by Hortense B. Lansburgh...
...Dr...
...The opposition to the Maternity and Infancy Act, while often evincing scorn and prejudice for the idea itself, has been ostensibly based on the preachment of States' Rights and less Government Interference...
...But there is no hope for a small appropriation like that for the maternity and infancy law...
...While very remarkable progress has been made in getting the program under way in the States, in no State can the field be said to have been plowed the first time...
...THE PROVISIONS of the Maternity and Infancy Act, its purpose and intent, have been grossly misrepresented and made the subject of thoughtless ridicule...
...In the wilds, he never' goes far from a waterhole and that's why no real hunter hunts the striped .lie in the wet season when water is everywhere...
...Breckinridge...
...The tiger is an extremely thirsty animal...
...3,781 prenatal conferences with 36,690 women in attendance and 65 permanent prenatal centers established...
...They go in the dry season, when there are only a few waterholes and a tiger is certain to be in the vicinity of one of them...
...National Council of Women, by Emma Bain Swiggett...
...Mother love is often helpless, sometime timid, sometimes over-confident...
...She says: • "Reports of work during the fiscal year 2925 show 18,154 child-health conferences held by 43 States administering the Federal funds, with 290,846 infants and children of preschool age examined and 607 children's health centers established through the efforts of the gtetes...
...Now that we have a doctor in the county, we are going to set up a clinic...
...In the campaign which should be begun now to replace the Sheppard-Towner Act which as amended in the Senate, goes out of existence in 1929, let the work be directed to aiousing the interest of men and women alike...
...The evidence is that the gopher used to live above ground altogether.-Naturalists believe that he found competition so acute that he dug in...
...Hasbrouck, "is wonderful...
...Forced to Accept...
...Maine and Massachusetts, have inaugurated this most important work in cooperation with the federal government...
...I like better to believe it is a manifestation of that fascinating attribute which William James characterized as "a certain blindness in human beings...
...AM But Five States Join ' FORTY-THREE states-all except Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas...
...Among those at this session of Congress appealing for extension of time in the operation of the law were: National Board Y. "W...
...It was the result of long years of joint effort on the part of the Children's Bureau and the women's organizations • of the country...
...Us population is entirely made up of old American, stock...
...Because the life of the Sixty-ninth Congress expires on the 4th of March next...
...National Women's Trade Union League, by Ethel M. Smith...
...Whoever stops to question the wisdom of Federal cooperation with the States in the maintenance of our great system of agricultural education and service, which plays such a large part in the improvement of almost every phase of our basic farming industry—the betterment in yield and quality of grains and fruits...
...The reaction from the boys," says Mrs...
...The doctrine of "too much government interference" had not come int%«- style then but tfce States Rights argument was even more the fashion than now—not so threadbare...
...And yet it seems to me—perhaps I am a victim of that sort of blindness already referred to—that Senator Reed's opposition to the Sheppard-Towner Act is grounded in feeling and prejudice rather than study and observation of the results of the Act as it has thus far been applied in the United States...
...Ija Follette, then a member of the House of Representatives, was in the thick of that fight...
...forecasting of weather conditions and many other things that vc.now accept as a part of our daily living ? And yet at the outset the idea of teaching the farmer anything he didn't know or of treating Agriculture as a science was scoffed and ridiculed in much the same spirit the Shop-pai'd-Towncr Act has been treated...
...Is it not a shameful commentary on our carelessness, ignorance and neglect, that in this country with all its wealth, prosperity and supposedly superior advantages, we have a higher death rate than fifteen other nations of the world...
...No one reveres more than I the wisdom and' experience of the woman who has reared a family of children, but you know the story of the old lady—I don't think she was the mother of Israel Senator Reed refers to—who said she knew all about raising a family...
...S9r 000,000...
...T REGRET to say that Senator Reed of Missouri—no less aggressive and masterful in attack of what he dislikes than in support of what he favors—has always been the foremost assailant, the bitterest enemy of the Sheppard-Towner Act...
...The only way to safeguard the lives and health of mothers and children in this district is to provide more trained nurse-midwives, for at present we have but six at our three centres...
...Our next step, and may we take it soon," she said, "is to trajn our boys as well as our girls for more intelligent parenthood...
...Fathers and mothers have traveled great distances to attend the conferences held by physicians and nurses, and local communities have cooperated in many ways...
...Harper .^tates: "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...
...If the appropriation fails in the short session, the work for which it provides is at an end...
...How many millions under existing conditions are beyond the reach of such care however much they need it?-And how many women and children die because of the mistaken idea that nature and mother love can al-v.ays be relied upon to take care of the period of gestation and the crisis of birth...
...have expended the funds made available by the act for work in the larger centers of population, but have attempted to carry out faithfully the purpose of Congress in enacting the law, by expending the funds thereby made available, in reaching smaller cities and towns and rural districts, isolated groups, and sections where the mortality rates were especially high...
...At this session of Congress other senators—King, Bingham, Bayard, Blease— were actively hammering the appropriation and threatening to kill it, but it was Senator Reed's announced determination to wipe the law off the statutes that forced acceptance of the amendment which makes the law nuil and void after 1929...
...TT WAS this situation in the Senate that made it seem advisable for the supporters of the'Sheppard-Towner Act to accept the condition on which the opponents would allow the appropriation to pass, rather than risk immediate shipwreck of the work in hand because of failure of the appropriation to pass at this session of Congress...
...IT WAS MORE THAN TWICE THAT HIGH IN RURAL AREAS AMONG OUR OLD AMERICAN STOCK...
...The reports also show that midwife classes were held in 19 States, with an attendance of 10,693 and that 8,047 women completed the course of instruction...
...When I have my groups of fbys and girls in the county normal schools," says Mrs...
...Federal-aid appropriation for agriculture alone carries over $9,000,000...
...General Federation of Women's clubs, by Kate Trenholm A brants...
...Hasbrouck's address...
...Surely they will make better citizens, better fathers for a knowledge, even a superficial one, of eugenics, nutrition, health and child training...
...There are no compulsory features in the Maternity and Infancy" Act...
...about 25,000 mothers die annually, the death rate in the registration area of the United States in 1923 having been 6.7 per 1,000 live births...
...This Maternity and Infancy Act authorized, as stated in the report of the Committee of the U. S. House of Representatives in charge of the measure, an expenditure . of '$480,000 to be equally apportioned among the several States, and for each subsequent year for five years $240,000 to be similarly apportioned, and an additional sum of $1,000,000 to be apportioned, $5,000 to each State and the balance to be prorated in accordance with the proportion which their population bears to the total population of the United States...
...The Secretary of the U. S. Department of Labor, under whose auspices the work is carried on, officially states: "With very few exceptions the States...
...The so-called Sheppard-Towner Act passed Congress in 1921...
...Gertrude Hasbrouck, organizer of Infant Hygiene courses in the public schools of Wisconsin under the Sheppard-Townr er Law, in a recent address said: "We are teaching only tb,e simple, fundamental principles of the care of the average normal baby...
...In order to secure, the passage of the appropriation, however, it was necessary for the supporters of the law to accept an amendment...
...How sincerely these health centers and prenatal conferences are valued may he judged from some of the facts cited by Grace Abbott, Chief of the Children's Bureau, before the House Committee...
...There were 370,591 home visits and home demonstrations made by She,ppard-Towner nurses in 1925...
...Women's Christian Temperance Union, by Lefina Howe Yost...
...preservation of the soil, increase in productiveness, lantf reclamation...
...We have lost more mothers in childbirth than we have lost men in battle...
...Mothers' love is no'more a substitute for wisdom and knowledge than is father's love, when it comes to saving the life and guarding the health of children...
...In the carrying out of this policy she had cooperation and enthusiastic support of the well known, representative women's organizations of the country...
...Each State, however, was to be the originator of its own plans and methods, subject only to general scrutiny and approval by the Federal Government to see that the plans were reasonably appropriate to that end...
...but if he were a blunderer or a,cruel man I would ratr|r go to the old lady who had raised a brood of children...
...For many years, Julia Lathrop, one of the greatest, if not the greatest, stateswom-an of her time, who was first Chief of the Children's Bureau, very wisely concentrated much of the effort of her administration on the elementary problem of preventing needless waste of human life at childbirth...
...He has great ability...
...It was one of the greatest satisfactions of his life to watch he results-of that beginning...
...C. A. Harper, for many years State Health Officer of Wisconsin, in an able argument for the Maternity and Infancy Law as administered by Federal and State government, points out that the mortality statistics of mothers and infants take no account of the enormous amount of suffering and sickness incident to ignorance and neglect...
...In other words the cooperative federal and state work so successfully inaugurated for the prevention of maternity and infancy mortality in the United States must cease after 1929 unless a new law is enacted...
...Every Wisconsin girl educated for intelligent motherhood,' is the slogan...
...Why accept such an amendment...
...In the legislative jam of the short session of Congress it is possible for any group of senators to kill any appropriation ,bill which they decide to filibuster...
...It is an account by Mary Breckinridge, director of nurses, of an experiment in an isolated county of Kentucky...
...National Congress of Parent-Teachers, by Florence V, Watkins...
...Senator Reed is an outstanding figure in the Senate...
...Good Roads...
...There are approximately as many stillbirths each year...
...Mothers classes were attended by 31,529 women, and 1,362 'little mother's classes were organized for girls between 10 and 15 years of age...
...This amendment provides that after June 30, 1929, the Maternity and Infancy Act of 1921 shall be of no force and effect...
...Need Intelligent Direction MOTHER'S love is indeed diving...
...Trial is Successful...
...THF FIVE years' demonstration of the work accomplished under the Maternity and Infancy Act have intensified the zeal and confirmed the conviction of these powerful groups of women that the cooperation of the Federal and State governments in this field of human welfare should be continued...
...C. A., represented by Elizabeth Eastman...
...National League of University Women, by Elise W. Graupner...
...But it is higher in America than in most countries...
...Maternal Deaths on Decline BEFORE ME is a clipping from the New York Times...
...And she commented on the fact that the superior health knowledge of the mother is rendered ineffective by the well intentioned but less well informed father...
...Views of Reed TN A recent very able address on the subject of free Speech before a convention of editors held here in Washington, Senator Reed reverted to the matter of the Maternity and Infancy Act and in the course of his talk said: "I do insist that the little woman who goes down into the Valley and shadow of death to bring up little hands and little feet and a new life, knows better how to take care of that baby than all the officials that ever were congregated in he capital of Washington...
...the extermination of injurious insects and bacteria...
...she had borne ten children and buried all but two...
...Na» tional Consumers' League, by Mabel C. Costi-gan...
...Jn view of all the work now being done and the enormous appropriations being made on the basis of Federal-State cooperation, we gJMf*11 look upon this sort of argument as subterfuge nriH hypocrisy...
...The five-year demonstration of achievement under the Sheppard-Towner Act furnishes overwhelming and indisputable proof of the need of permanent cooperation of Nation and State in preventing the needless suffering and loss of life and health at childbirth...
...Such information should be the educational equipment of every woman if she is intelligently trained for motherhood...
...Hasbrouck, "I try to make the boys feel that they too have a part in this, that it is something that can not be left entirely to womanhood, that '.he supreme obligation, the gravest responsibility and the highest duty that comes to a human being is that of parenthood, .and that unless we are prepared to meet that obligation intelligently, we can not feel that we are doing our duty to ourselves, to our country or to future generations...
...National Association of Colored Women, By Mary F. Thompson...
...The pocket gopher, which lives in multitudes and does great damage to crops in the west, has changed his habits, probably during the past century or two...
...Nature is profligate of life, sometimes cruel...
...Let us take a leaf out of Mrs...
...They are equally concerned...
...The combined fund was to be used for the general purposes above expressed...
...Nevertheless, the killing of the Maternity and Infancy Act is a hard blow to the Bureau...
...If both men and women make their representatives in C6ngress understand that they want this greatest educational work of the century to go forward, if they demonstrate that public opinion is united and aggressively back of a law providing Federal-State aid for this kind of education, the opposition will break down and we shall in 1929 start building on a firm, invincible foundation...
...The Bureau was organized under a different act at an earlier date...
...Snch careless flings and cruel gibes from the lips of our representatives in Congress are perhaps the best proof of the call for education, enlightenment and wider dissemination of knowledge in the matter of prevention of sacrifice of human life and care of the health of mothers and babes at childbirth...
...But how many millions of mothers can not afford this attention and how many millions do not know the value of prenatal observation mvA care...
...Mortality is no higher in Kentucky, as a whole, than in any other State," said Mrs...
...I notice that the appropriation for Agricultural Experiment Stations as set forth in the Budget for the fiscal year of 1927 is approximately $2.SO0,0(K...
...They have different problems to meet and different sums of money available to carry on the work...
...Many mothers and children are crippled, maimed and live in misery—chronic invalids, because of failure of instruction to mothers and families which would prevent such inefficiency, needless pa'n and expense to the home and society...
...Leslie County lies in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains...
...war against animal diseases...
...it is on the same basis, the same general principle as that for Good Roads, Agricultural Extension work, Vocational Education, Forestry Protection and many other progressive Federal and State joint undertakings with which we have ail been long /amiliar...
...The program of Federal and State aid Ikinfe carried out under the provisions of the Sheppard-Towner Act is not new...
...But love is not a substitute for intelligence...
Vol. 19 • March 1927 • No. 3
