New-York tribune., 1908-03-25
IT MAKES LISTENER" WEARY.
Too Much Talk About Race Suicide and Too
Little Pure Milk.
tn the Editor of The Tribune.

To the Editor of The Tribune
Sir: Sometimes it happens that people prove one
thing while actively engaged in proving another-
In vour report of the food committee meeting held
at the Madison Square Presbyterian Church pup
Tshed on March L. Mr.. Freeman is quoted as say
ing that the mortality of infants under one year
of age had reduced in recent years In Ne"
York from go 10 10. per thousand largely through
the agency of seven sterilized milk depots, sup
ported by man. In Yonkers infant mortalitS
from diarrhaa had been reduced 80 per cent solely
through milk depots. and even more starting ng-
ures were quoted from towns in France.
Since beginning of the present printing press
era the function OF the mother in preserving the
life of the child has been harped upon until II is
grained into the popular mind that nothing and
nobody but the mother has anything to do Win
the matter In that branch Of literature desig-
mated as --wonens magazines. especially, the SER
mon of the mothers power and the ehclency or
the mothers love save. protect and cherish her
child is preached weekly and monthly ad nauseam
Is there any reason to suppose that mothers love
their children any better in Ne York now than
they did seventeen years ago, when the death rate
quoted was moie than 100 per cent higher? Is 1t
even question of the mothers intelligence? Could
the mothers of the class WI milk from the
milk depots feed their babies have secured the
introduction of these depots, no matter how We'll
they understood their value? Miss Lakey voices
your report the opinion that women age TO blame
for every eyf that exists, and that men Will give
us ANYTHING if We only ask for it Perhaps they
will after while 1t took twenty years of steady,
nersistent work by women get the New York
LEGISLATURE TO establish the Bedford Reformatory
for women II took nearly long to get police
nlatrons appointed il the station houses of this
city New Jersey women conducted an arduous
campaign for a woman reformatory. and after
long efforts and many dIsappointments re-
1oiced al the passage Of their bill When they
got home from Trenton they found that the Legis-
la1ure had PLAYED neat fim-fam game upon them
and passed the bill without any appropriation,
-endering j imperative From knowledge that
has come within my own narrow experience l do
not think the tenement house mothers would have
got those milk stations. which reduced the
mortality their babies than per if
they had asked for them Where. then, is the
mothers power protect her child from death :?
With the best will in the world she must il
die when certain outside forces strong for
her combat
Mr. Freeman declares that endowment of
100000 would establish enough sterzed milk
depots in New York 10 5000 infant lives
year: that the city ought 10 give that endowment,
and that IL will do When this enormous
saving OF infant life could be by
peneture which is only a drop III the bucket
pared with expenditures which made by the
reprove women for suicide and demand more
children TO take the place of those which society
lets die for the of simple a thing as clean
milk2 AS Dr. Charles Harrington, Of Harvard
Medical School, sayc in one of his works: "It is
all very well to urge the Importance of bringing
larger numbers OF infants into the world, what
can IL avail Il, after they born, they are per
mitted TO die forthwith? How much more does #
profit community 10 add TO its numbers a hum
dred infants and lose twenty through easily pre
'entable causes, than 10 add ninety and protect