The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-02-07
FUR 4 FEDERAL
 CHILDREN'S BUREAU
To Investigate Infant Vital Sta
 tiSticS
HAS A VERY WIDE SCOPE
Bill Is Introduced in Congress by Her. bert Parsons of New York-Re- ferred to Committe on
 Expenditures.
By EDWARD T. DEvlNE

6y EOWAhD |, LEVINE General Secretary New York Charity Or
 ganization Society. Exclusive Service
 Charities and The Commons Press Blu reau)
 GA bill to establish the Federal Child ren's bureau has been introduced in Con- gress by Herbert Parsons of New York known as H. R. Bill 2HB and has been referred to the Committee on Expenditures in the Interior department MT. Devines discussion of the necessity for the bu- reau is made particularly timely by the interest aroused in this new bill)
 The facts concerning the chaotic and, even yet, on the whole backward eondi- ton of the legislation on the~subject of children in our several states. speak very eloquently of the need for further public enlightenment The existing Bureau of Labor Census bureau. Bureau of Public Health and Marine Hospital service. and Bureau of Education, all have certain limited and fragmentary responsibilities for the welfare of the nations children.
 Even these responsibilities, however, might be discharged far more completely if they were concentrated The labor of children enters into the relations between employer and employe. and into the gen eral question of the condition of labor with which the Federal Bureau of Labor deals, but this very fact is anomalous and deplorable There should be no such thing as child labor, and while 1t exists it should have the serious attention of the government, not as a normal condition to be investigated and regulated like adult labor in mines and factories, but as an abnormal and temporary condition to be eliminated as speedily as possible. It should be investigated and dealt with not as an industrial or commercial problem, but as one affecting the very life and well being of the race, as problem of health, education, morals and social econ omy
 With all recognition of the usefulness of such partial and sporadic attention as the Labor bureau has been able to give the subject, it is obvious that the inter- ests of children are literally of vital, na- tional concern and that they should be approached from quite another point of view than that from which strikes, wages and the conditions of adult labor are ap- propriately treated. Nor does the Census bureau serve the purpose which a bureau of children would serve. The collection of certain very limited, statistical informa- tion at stated periods is of value. Un- fortunately we have not much of it. and what we have is out of date when it ap- pears.
 Slow and antiquated methods of mak- ing available the results of investigations of the Census bureau in this field go far to destroy what value they might otherwise have. and the scope of such inquiries as have been made is so narrow as to leave us in helpless and humilating ignorance. Quantitive investigations may be made by the Census bureau, but we need a children's bureau to determine what information is desirable and to con- slider what to do after it has been ob- tained.
 The rudimentary Bureau of Public Health in the Treasury department com mands constantly increasing respect for its work in controlling epidemics and it's scientific inquiries in various directions, notably, for example, in its current inves- tfgation of the hook worm. If this bureau should eventually outgrow the limitations imposed by it's origin in the Marine Hos pital service, and should become in re- ality bureau of public health. it would naturally include within its activities the investigation of many problems connected with epidemic and infectious diseases of children and other dangers to their health.
 But a children's bureau would seek to promote the health, vigor, physical well being and efficiency of children, and would thus begin where health bureau ends. It would utilize the results of all investigations by Labor bureau Census bureau and Health bureau so far as they bear upon the welfare of children. It would directly concern itself with the inn provement of the human race by the inn provement of it's physical and mental stock. Even theN Bureau of Education, howeveh active and efficient it may be- come, cannot cover the wide range of ac- tivties which would naturally devolve upon the childrens bureau.
 Orphanage, illiteracy illegtimacy, in- fant mortality, race suicide and race de- generacy, child dependency juvenile de- linquency with all it's attendant issues of children's courts, reformatory, probation and parental schools, and the more com plete specializing of the public school sys- tenn, with the broad issues which this in- wolves are among the problems which we now neglect entirely, or in part but which are of national importance, and which In the degree and manner pro- posed are clearly within the constitutions al province of the Federal government
 It is not suggested that the national government should take up all or per- haps any of these subjects for direct remedial or preventive legislation. Re- search and publicity, on lines strictly an- alogous to the well-established activities of many existing bureaus is the aim of those who advocate the children's bu- reau.