The Connecticut labor news., 1921-08-05
MATERNITY BILL IS PRACTICALLY SURE
 TO PASS CONGRESS
Senate Already Approves of It By Big Majority, House Expected
 to Follow.

Soldiers Bonus bill and succeeded III having that legislation postponed, the President has put his foot down success fully upon the Norris plan tor the eS- tablishment of a government corpora tion for the purchase and sale Ot farm products, a plan which would have put the Government directly into business.
 Very adroitly the President and his advisers have shifted this proposal so that the War Finance Corporation IS to extend further credits for the exporta- tion of farm products. This corpora tion is to extend the credits proposed to "persons, firms and corporations" who in turn will sell to foreign buyers the surplus products of the farmers.
 These persons, to whom the credit IS extended will in a way stand between the Government and the producers and the purchasers also.
 The so-caled Maternity bill designed to give Federal aid in the matter ot protecting maternity and infancy, through cooperation with the States, appears to be destined to become law, notwithstanding the efforts of opponents to sidetrack 1t.
 The bill has passed the Senate by an overwhelming vote - only seven Sena- tors voting against. This IS the second time the Senate has gone on record III favor of the bill, the first time in the last Congress.
 The House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce has completed hearings an the bill, and has adjourned to meet again in two or three weeks, after the hearings have been printed.
 It is no secret that Representative N of the committed has been opposed to the Maternity bill. But it is understood that fully three fourths of the commit tee favor it and that the measure will be reported favorably to the House.
 The women's organizations are de- manding the passage of the Maternity bill, and the voice of the organized women, since suffrage came in, is as po- tent in Washington as is the voice Ot the organized farmers, or organized labor.
 The Maternity bill'' has been discus sed widely, but the method of operation under the proposed law IS perhaps not so familiar as the name of the measure.
 In the first place, the aid to be given mothers, both before and after child birth, is to be given through agencies selected by the Legislatures of the varl- ous States. As in the Federal good roads aid to the States, the States are required to match dollar tor dollar WILD the Federal government.
 Through the Children'S Bureau, De- partment of Labor, the Federal Govern ment will keep track of what the State agencies are doing in the way ot in structing and aiding the mothers i'll the care of their children, and will see to it that the money is spent Tn accord ance with approved plans
 Opponents of the Maternity bill have insisted that it is socialistic, that it has been backed by women who have also backed the movement for birth control, that it will lead to invasion of the homes of the people and to an effort to con- trol the care of children by their par ents.
 Senator "Jim' Reed, Democrat, of Missouri, bitter opponent of the Ma ternity bill, sought to have the title amended just before the measure was passed by the Senate so as to read, "A bill to authorize a board of spinsters to control maternity and teach the mothers of the United States how to rear ba- bes." But this sarcastic fling, although it caused some mirth, did not bring forth a rolcall in the Senate, and his AOSN by an overwhelming viva vOCe vote.
 The effort of Senator Moses to have the Federal Public Health Service in stead of the Children's Bureau admin ister the law also failed.
 During the testimony before the Sen ate Committee on Education and La bor, which considered the Maternity bill, it was stated that it is safer to be a mother in IA important foreign Coun- tries than in the United States. In 1918, 23,OOO mothers died in this coun- try from causes connected with child birth, and nearly a quarter ot million under the age of 1 year died.
 The Children's Bureau has studied the situation in both urban and rural areas in the United States and has found that the mothers of the country in very large numbers have received no advice or trained attendants at the time of the birth of their babies, and that there has been practically no organized effort, par ticularly in the rural districts, to meet the need for instruction in prenatal and infant hygiene.
 Under the maternity bill, known as the Sheppard -Towner bill, it's advocates except that the Federal Government will blaze the way for such needed instruc- ton, and that the movement will result in the saving of thousands of mothers and infants from death, with a conse- quent increase III the economic wealth of the country.
 Concretely the Maternity bill author ized the appropriation of $48O,OOO an nually, $1O,OOO to be paid to each State, for the purpose of paying the expenses of the cooperative work between the Federal Government and the State, in- cluding the services and the printing pro- vided for in the measure.
 In addition to this appropriation, the bill authorizes an annual appropriation of $l,OOOOOO to be divided among the States, in the ratio of their population to the total population of the United States. But none of this million dollars is to be turned over to any State for its use until that State has appropriated a similar sum for use in the work of in- structing mothers in the care of infants and of themselves in the prenatal stage.
 To meet the objection that the Gov ernment was proposing to establish a and children, the Senate has inserted the following language in the bill:
 That no plans of States under this act shall provide for any official or agent or representative entering any home over the objection of the parents, or the person standing in locOparentis, nor shall any employees of the Children s