Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1919-08-20
EQUAL SUFFRAGE BENEFITS.
Coventry Woman Reads Paper at
County w. c. T. u. Convention.

Has Been Accomplished Through
Suffrage in Regard to Child welfare
and HEALTH" at the county conven-
ton of the w. C. T. U. held at
Bloomington.
1t is now generally accepted that
that legislation has proved wholly
benefcent which has during the past
half century afforded ts women and
girls their present widespread OPP
portunity for education. As result
of this far-reaching movement there
is present in the community an ele-
ment of distinctive intelligence avail
able for social and civic usefulness
such as never before existed.
Many think that the emancipation
of woman will lessen poverty and
through this war this is already
certainty in England In America
poverty is in nine states made an
excuse for exploiting the child by
cutting short his education and al
lowing him to enter industry below
the age set for other children. Okla
homa, Ohio and Montana provide
scholarships for this group of chill
dren instead of driving them prema-
turely into industry.
In New York in 1918, Mayor Hy-
land proposed abolition of the Child
Hygiene Bureau among other branch
es of the health department of New
York City. This was protested at
once by the Woman Suffrage party
of the city. That the vote in the
hands of women is counted upon as
an asset in just such civic crises as
this was manifested when the Won-
ans Municipal League-a non-suf-
frage acknowledgements to the
IL 4 An1
stand against a step which means a
useless loss of lives of children"
Other cooperative groups of women
the City Federation of Women's
clubs, Woman's City Club, Woman's
Trade Union League, with almost
every social and civic organization,
declared against disturbing the
health protecting institutions in
which New Workers take great and
just pride.
The agitation of the women's or
CARNATIONS rapidly spread to the /
physicians and the medical profess !
sion added its voice to those reaching |
the city hall. Heads of the New /
York Academy of Medicine and of |
the medical societies of New York |
and King counties united in ac-
claiming the preventive and con-
structive work which had been
achieved by the health bureaus. do /
the parents of New York know what /
it would mean if the infant death
rate were to rise from 80 per thou
sand to IA per thousand ?" asked the
physicians.
As for the child hygiene bureau it
mas a record under DIR. Josephine
Baker which is remarkable 1t was
founded in 1908. In-1910 it had in
stituted Is milk stations in the city
to demonstrate the proper feeding of
children. By 1917 the bureau had
raised the total number of milk sta
tons to so, serving $4,000 children.
During the same period the infant
leath rate had fallen steadily. By
1917 it stood at 8S.S per thousand,
he lowest in any large city of the
world.
This is not all the Child Hygiene
bureau had done under DR.. Baker. 1t
had instituted preventative medical
in the schools. 1t had reg
llated the profession of midwives.
In his proposed change, Mayor Hy-
and had CHANGED upon the very
Kings in which women are tremen-
be said, they had specialized No
mere technicality of bureaucratic
will weigh with them as
lgainst the welfare of childhood.
These enfranchised women will stand
guard over whatever threatens the [
lealth of the children of their city.
New York women are more than
thankful that the vote is theirs as
IN additional safeguard to the thou
andS of children reaching out their
lands to them for help.
In Brockton, Mass, by the way, a
tate which has school or tax suf-
rage, the babies have their own
lristocratic circle to which only the
most fortunate babies can belong. In
| study just made public by the
Jhildren's Bureau of the U. S. De-
3artment of Labor shows that the I
ABLY who belonged to the so-ealled
'ar1stocracy". had a much better
,hance of living than the baby who ;
Gould not quality. III
To be a member of the aristocracy
me had to meet five requirements.
tIrst the father must have earned a
air wage Second, the mother must
lot have been gainfully employed.
either during the year before or the
.ear after the baby's birth. Third.
he must have had at least fair medi,
al care when the baby was born.
'ourth, both father and mother must (
AVE been able to read and write. |
fifth, the house the baby lived in
must have been well ventilated, clean I
md sanitary and not over-crowded. {
Only 2O5 of the 1,210 babies born
Ii1Ve IN Brockton in the year studied
ould meet these requirement. Fiji
cen of the 205 died before they were :
year old, so that the infant NOR !
allty rate for the aristocracy was 73 '
'er thousand, "a points more fayora- =
re than the rate of Brockton as
Whole
However, this is an enviable rec-
I'd compared to the fact that out of =
D babies born during two months in !.
maternity home in Poland, only one p
yere too badly starved to be able to
I've their children vitality enoughfor
ven start in life. And a like stata