Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1917-07-17

SIdnulnS on the family Bl0le.-Atlanta
Journal.
| WOMEN INTERESTED IN BILLS
BEFORE THE LEGISLATURE
The Georgia branch of the National
Congress of Mothers and Parent
! Teacher associations will have before
the legislature this year two bills
which are of great Importance and
interest to every citizen of the state
| OfGeorgia. One is bill for the moth
ers' pension law, and the other a
bill asking for the care of defective
and delinquent children.
Legislation for the former measure
has received wide support from men
of influence all over the United
States, and if this law becomes opera
tive in Georgia, untold benefit will
be the result.
The first plea for mothers pen
sions was made at the second inter-
national congress on child welfare,
held in Washington, D. c., under the
auspices of the National Congress of
Mothers and Parent-Teacher asso-
Citations, in April, 1911, by Mrs. G.
Harris Robertson, of Tennessee; and
the appeal was so convincing that the
National Congress of Mothers unani-
mously recommended that it's state
branches should make it their work
for the following year. Since that
time the congress is responsible for
the introduction and passage of the
laws in a number of states, among
thos working under similar laws be-
ing Idaho, oregon, Pennsylvania, Il
linois and others.
The mothers pension has for it's
purpose the protection and home
education of children. The state
owes children protection to larger
degree than it owes protection to
it's adults, because children are I'm
able to think, plan and provide for
themselves. More and more will the
nation guard the physical, moral and
mental welfare of it's children, be
cause in so doing it insures its sue
cess and permanence and quality as
nation. When death robs children
of fathers care, it is loss enough
without doubling the calamity by de-
priving them of their mother-leav-
ing her to struggle for their daily
bread, and leaving them uncared for
and alone through all the daylight
hours, perhaps. When for good reas-
sons, other than death the sole care
of children rests on the mother, their
need is just as great. 1t is said half
the children brought into courts are
truants and truancy is rarely habitual
except among children where the
home conditions are bad. Every
thinking individual knows that a
working mother, with the best quail
fications for being good mother,
cannot exercise her powers when she
is absent from home all day long;
and the state has decided that the
service to the children is vastly
more important than her service as
wage Garner.
An investigation into the child life
of thousands of prison inmates shows
that hundreds of them count their
first separation from any commit
ment to reformatory as the turn
ing point downward in their lives.
For more than thirty years such men
have been an expense and care to
the state, and those who have given
deep study to cause and effect see
that it may be more beneficial to
society and more economical in the
end to give every child his own
though it be necessary to provide
mother's' guidance and care, even
financial help for a few years.
Without question, the greatest as
set in the life of children is good
mother, and the greatest wrong to
children is to deprive them of that
mother. The mothers pension then,