Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1916-03-28
SHOULD MAKE FIGHT
FOR REGISTRATION |:
Recording Of Babies Not Obligatory
Would Solve Many Le-
gal Tangles.

It behooves every community in
which Baby Welfare Week is OBJ
served to stir up an interest in baby
registration which the state Of, Iowa
has been without since the 31st Cen
eral Assembly in 1905. The law re-
quiring the registration Of births
was repealed at that time.
An important law suit was lost in
this city about two years ago, be-
cause birth registration has not been
a law. The case concerned an acct
dent which befell young man who,
securing employment in local fact
tory, had sworn he was sixteen years
of age. Later he was injured and
suing the company for damages, his
father and mother swore on the wit
ness stand that he was not yet six
teen years of age at the time he Sc
cured employment3ip the factory.
This made the employers liable for
injury, since, they Lad no recourse
to an accurate registration OF the
boys birth.
DR.. Arthur Reynolds. formerly
health commissioner of Chicago,
said in public address, There is
hardly a relation lof life from the
cradle to the grave which the evil
dence furnished by an accurate reg
istration of births may not prove to
be of the greatest value, as for ex-
ample, in the matter of descent; in
the relation of guardian and ward;
in the disabilities Of minors; in the
administration of estates; the set
Elements Of insurance and pensions;
the requirements of foreign coun-
tries concerning residence, marriage
and legacies; in marriage in our own
country; in voting; in jury and MI
|litia service; in the. enforcement OF
laws relating to education and to
child labor. as well as to various
matters in criminal courts; the ire
sponsibility of children under ten
years of age for crime, misdemean-
or, etc.
Birth certificates are likewise of
the utmost importance in proving
ones right to an inheritance. A
young man from Switzerland came
to Indiana with his wife and in
time became the father Of little
girl. He was killed when the child
was three years old and left his wife
penniless. Finally came the news
that the child's parental uncle had
died in Switzerland and had left
$4,000 to his brothers child. The
money was awaiting the child on
the proof that she was the issue OF
the. dead mans deceased brother, but
the doctor who attended the child's
mother was dead; the mothers tes-
timony was invalid. The child lost
the inheritance and despite the
greatest effort, never received dol
lar Of the legacy and this for the
sole reason that Indiana did not
have a birth registration law.
In 1912, DR.. E. E. Richardson of
this city read a paper on Birth Reg
istration before the Hahnemann
Medical Association Of Iowa in
which he cites an instance where
here in America there was suit ov-
Ter some property, the age of one Of
the heirs being a question of prime
importance.
None of the witnesses were able
to fix time beyond question. There
was no public record Of the birth
and it seemed as though the heir
would lose his rights merely because
he could not establish his exact age.
BY chance some one remembered
that thoroughbred COW had given
birth to calf the day the man was
born. Other witnesses corroborated
this. The calf was valuable; its
birth had been registered and by
the books of the Breeders Associa-
ton the man was able to prove his
age. 1t is a sorry commentary on
man that we should suffer this.
Apparently the reason this law,
once in force, was repealed, was that
the penalty was not sufficient to
make physicians obey it. The law
was not enforced and became as
many others, dead timber.
To Excelsior Springs.