The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1920-09-10
Women Urged to
Vote for Protection
OF Motherhood


Four million women voters in 1916
were able by concerted action to make
the national Woman Suffrage amend
ment political issue in the last Presi-
dental election, with the result that
it has lately been passed by Congress.
Can fifteen million women voters ia
the present year be persuaded to unite
in behalf of governmental protection
of maternity and infancy? Anne Mar
tin, the Woman Suffrage leader of Ne
vada, raises the question in Good
Housekeeping and urges that move
ment be started to educate American
public opinion in the matter. 1t seems
that jeanette Rankin introduced in the
Sixty-fifth Congress a bill providing
for instruction in the hygiene of ma
ternity and infancy" and for proper
care of maternity and infancy in rura,
districts" but that it died through lack
Of public interest. A new bill has
been introduced in the Sixty-sixth
Congress by Senator Sheppard, of
Texas. 1t is sponsored by Julia La
throp, of the Children's Bureau, and
approved by the Life Extension Insti-
tute of New York. Miss Martin calls
it "the most far-reaching conserva-
ton measure before the American peo-
pie" Good Housekeeping expresses
it's interest in the following terms:
Last year our government spent
$47, 100000 to protect farmers against
avoidable losses of hogs corn and cat
tie. In the same period it spent, in
an effort to prevent the avoidable loss
of mothers and babies, just $47,000,000
less. And we lost 100000 babies, and
nearly $4,000 mothers died in child
birth. Such discrimination in favor
of hogs and corn should cease A bill
now before Congress (Senate Bill
1888; House Bill 1O925) will stop it if
it is enacted into law. The bill is
sponsored by the Children's Bureau:
it is a god bill and should pass"
Investigation carried on by the Chill
dren's Bureau in rural areas of Wis
consin, Kansas, North Carolina and
Montana have revealed a higher ma
ternal mortality rate than in the
United States as whole. "The rural
districts" Miss Martin observes, "are
in the greatest need of help" Imagi-
nation easily supplies pictures of wo-
men who have no trained attendance
of any kind at the birth of their
babies; who are compelled to work
until the last moment before birth
and who are expected to resume work
in their households within two or
three weeks after a birth.
The bill introduced by Senator Shep-
pard and seconded by Representative
Towner, of the House is entitled "a
Bill for the Public Protection of Ma
ternity and Infancy, and providing a
Method of Cooperation between the
Government of the United States and
the Several States" Unlike Miss
Rankin's bill, it furnishes help to
mothers in industrial, as we'll as in
rural, districts-to all mothers, in fact
1t creates Federal Board Of Maternal
and Infant Hygiene, consisting of the
Secretary of Labor, who shall be chair
man, the Chief of the Children's Blu
reau, who shall be the executive Off
Ger, the Surgeon-Generalo of the United
States Public Health Service and the
United States Commissioner of Edu'
cation. The Federal Board is to act
through State Boards appointed by the
various legislatures. The benefits ex'
tended are of two kinds. First, popu.
lar instruction in the hygiene of in
fancy and maternity and related sub.
jects is to be applied through public
health nurses and consultation centers
and through qualified lecturers in ex-
tension courses. Second, medical and
nursing care for mothers and infants
at home or at a hospital, when neces-
sary, will be supplied.
Practically all the leading countries,
with the exception of the United
States, now furnish some kind of gov
eminent aid to mothers. Germany, ii,
1884, was the first to initiate legisla-
ton of this sort; Austria and Hungary
soon followed. Italy and New Zealand