THE ROLL CALL
A Gift for the Nation's Children WOULD YOU, if you could, make one child happy this Christmas? Make some bounding, ruddy-cheeked youngster shout with joy? Make some wan, tired child's face light up...
...The Committee on Education and Labor of the Senate reported on March 18, 1910, that "after a thorough investigation of its relation to other bureaus and departments of the government, it has been found that the proposed bureau will in no sense duplicate work that is now being done...
...For instance, it may inquire into such questions as infant mortality, the birth rate, juvenile delinquency and juvenile courts, accidents and diseases of children, child labor, dangerous occupations...
...The "Children's Bureau" WHAT IS this "Children's Bureau...
...Let's Catch up with Europe WE HAVE LAGGED behind other enlightened countries in the conservation of our child life—our greatest national resource...
...But the point is we should go a step farther and do the same kind of work for us humans...
...In the latter, for example, we would read that "dark, dirty, crowded stables (houses) are favorable to tuberculosis...
...Nothing came of it...
...It was introduced in the extra session of the 62d Congress last summer...
...That's all...
...Here is where our Christmas suggestion comes in...
...Supporting the bill and working seriously for its passage are such organizations as the National Child Labor Committee and the National Federation of Women's Clubs, together with such noble workers for the betterment of the conditions under which children must live as Miss Jane Addams and Judge Ben B. Lindsey...
...The germs get into the milk, and hogs and calves (little boys and girls) are very readily infected by it...
...The Director of the Census told the Senate that it would not duplicate, but supplement, the work of his bureau...
...Senator Borah's bill was favorably reported by the Committee on Education and Labor...
...Sure...
...It was introduced in the 60th Congress...
...Let your representatives in Congress know how you feel about the "Children's Bureau" way of setting countless thousands of children on the way to Christmas cheer—the kind that lasts not alone through Yuletide, but through all the year...
...There are other states without even such agencies for public information...
...More and more work of that nature should be done...
...instance, in a farmer's bulletin on tuberculosis in farm als we might revise the chapter on "How the Disease ds" to read as follows: "Sooner or later the tuberculous person) begins to give off the germs of the disease...
...And the committee found that "there does not now exist in any of the states such a bureau as the one contemplated, although some of the facts desired are collected by a few of the states either through bureaus of education or of labor or of health...
...Congress Shirks a Duty CONGRESS has had more than one opportunity to pass this "Children's Bureau" bill...
...It has failed to do so...
...You will be using your fairy wand of citizenship to make life more worth the living to these children, to set going a movement that must surely open the way to happiness such as a great army of childhood has never known...
...England is ahead of us...
...Sometimes, you know, what Congress does is determined not so much by arguments as by other kinds of pressure...
...And morals, too...
...Quite the contrary...
...Right in fciis connection, we insert a suggestion made by the Journal of he American Medical Association...
...We are doing that sort of thing to our children...
...Cow Culture...
...The chapter on "How a Herd (Family) is Infected" is excellent, as is also the chapter on "Sanitation...
...Stables (houses) should have plenty of air space for each animal (whether of monetary value or only man...
...The "Children's Bureau" bill has reached a stage where there is not a single excuse for further delaying its passage...
...A New Job for Uncle Sam IN NO SENSE will the "Children's Bureau" duplicate the work of any other branch of the government...
...Are Johnnie and Willie and Mary as worthy of Uncle Sam's protection as the calf, the pig, the lamb...
...In the Senate on February 14, 1910 it was passed by unanimous consent...
...Of course, among the animals we have no counterpart of our child labor problem...
...Send a Christmas Note To-day GONGRESS is at work again...
...We do not make our little lambs run tread-mills...
...Over in the House a hearing was held before the House Committee on Labor on the same bill introduced by Representative Peters...
...germs are coughed up and sprayed over the food in front of the cow (individual) ; cows (people) in adjoining stalls (beds) may acquire the disease in this way...
...There are today countless thousands of infant toilers pouring a golden stream of profits into the coffers of "good business" at the expense of body and mind...
...We believe it would be entirely within the province of the national government to secure scientific and reliable information along these lines concerning the general welfare of the children of the nation...
...Broadly, there is no subject affecting the health, training or character of children that may not claim the attention of the bureau...
...There is little doubt this committee will report the bill favorably...
...The Commissioner of Education said the same...
...The Parliament recently passed what is known as the "Children's Act" which provides not only for investigation but for administrative action for the protection of the children...
...Commenting on the atten-on given by the government to the protection and welfare farm animals and its neglect of the health and well-being of people,—men, women and children,—it suggests that most the bulletins of the Bureau of Animal Industry could be made serve human needs with very little additional expense of ting by simply inserting a few words into the report like word "child" after the word "cow" or the word "house" the word "stable...
...But even here we have only just begun to get results...
...If they are then we have been as a nation sadly derelict in our duty to the boys and girls...
...But Child Culture, Too IT IS NOT that less attention should be put to the well-being of the farm animals...
...The chief work of Lhe "Children's Bureau" is to be along the lines of research...
...In this and in other respects the "Children's Bureau" must blaze its own trail...
...We are doing so much for the conservation of animal life that the "Children's Bureau," if created, would find in the work of the Bureau of Animal Industry much of help and value in dealing with the child welfare problem...
...And for that reason we are going to make a Christmas suggestion...
...We have already grappled with some phases of the problem of conserving the welfare of children in this country...
...Would you, if you could, make every child in the world happy...
...Make some wan, tired child's face light up with unutterable delight...
...This British act has been called the "Children's Charter" because in many respects it is to the little folks of England what the great Magna Charta was to the citizens...
...There they have a very thorough and complete system of research concerning all the facts relating to child life...
...If you act on this suggestion you will be playing the part of the good Santa to several million children in this country...
...Most notable, of course, is our effort to restrict child labor...
...Some states are without vital statistics of any kind and these states would be stimulated to investigations of their own by the aid of the proposed Bureau of Children...
...Perhaps the creation of the "Children's Bureau" was considered to be interfering unduly with what is called "good business...
...clean, airy, well-lighted stables (houses) are unfavorable to the development of the disease...
...And, ultimately, national efficiency...
...to lift from the tiny backs the burden placed there by greedy manufacturers with case-hardened souls...
...they escape from the cow (human being) by the mouth, nose, etc...
...Of course you would...
...Otherwise there never would have been a Santa Claus...
...The committees both in the Senate and the House reported favorably upon it...
...The bill to create the Children's Bureau was introduced in the 59th Congress...
...We told you something about it in La Follette's last year and urged you to do your part in securing its passage by Congress...
...It is to investigate and report upon all matters pertaining to the welfare of children and child life...
...TTJ EALLY, it amounts to this: are our children as valuable XV as our live stock...
...Shall We Neglect Boys for Pigs...
...And could there be any better time to send such a message than the birthday jf Him who said, "Inasmuch as ye do it unto the least of these, ye do it also unto me...
...We do not make our calves carry packs just large enough for them to stagger under...
...We think you would...
...Briefly, it is proposed to establish a bureau in the Department of Education, to be known as the "Children's Bureau," to do for the children of the nat'on what the Bureau of Animal Industry in the Department of Agriculture is doing so effectively for the live stock of the nation...
...No argument worthy of the name has been advanced against its passage...
...Every month there are issued from the Department of agriculture bulletins and charts and pictures and scientific facts to guide the farmer in caring for his animals...
...Germany is ahead of us...
...It went over to the House, but the potent forces that steered the course of that body did not permit it to come to a vote...
...It has many measures of paramount importance to wrestle with...
...Why not let this bill be the first to pass in the first regular session of the 62d Congress...
...In no existing department is investigation of this character being made...
...A Christmas Suggestion ALL YOU have to do to carry out this suggestion is to write a letter to your Senator and your Congressman telling them that you want them to vote for the bill to establish a "Children's Bureau...
...It was introduced in the 61st Congress...
Vol. 3 • December 1911 • No. 50
