Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1921-07-23
WOMAN'S RELATION TO
NATIONAL GOVERNMENT
Her Responsibility Pointed Out
by Mrs. Cunningham Before
Summer School.

Special Correspondence Every Evening
Newark, July 23.--.'T'here is not a
possible position in which woman can
find herself" Mrs. Minnie Fisher Cum
ningham. executive secretary OF the
National League of Women Voters.
declared In an address delivered before
the University OF Delaware Summer
School last night, I'm which she does
not bear a close relationship to the
national government. We said to our
boys during the war. go; this gov
eminent which our fathers conceived
is worth every sacrifice: IL Is worth a
manned existence or life itself We
do not dare TO relax our vigilance now
and because peace has come say that
this same government for which We
sent our boys to die is not our bust
ness"
Mrs. Cunningham discussed "woman's
Relation to the National Government
from the standpoint OF the homemaker
and the mother. She referred to the
Fess amendment to the Smith Hughes
act now before Congress. by which IL
enacted, more money will be appro-
priated for home economies work in
the schools, thereby putting this SUBJ
ject. SO vital in Importance to nine
out of every ten of the girls in the
country, on an equal plane of inn
portance with the trades, agriculture
and industry. Mrs. Cunningham ex-
hibited a copy of the government re-
port showing income tax returns TO the
United States treasury. Are these
statistics likely to be exaggerated,
ask you," she sid. yet there are
IN this report sixteen finely-printed
pages of numbers, for the packer in
terests succeeded in preventing the
publication of names representing
packer corporations. Many of these
report earnings during the war OF
over 100 per cent; not few show
that they earned during that period
when we were all periodically re-
spending to the call to economic. over
Loco per cent. One of the most
heated fights in every Congress centers
around the packer legislation. Woman
in practically every home is in con-
troll of the production and distribu-
ton of food. Is she interested in
these thingsg A recent investigation
mas revealed the fact that zoe OF the
children in one school in an eastern
city were undernourished. At the
same time in the United States of
America some packing corporations are
reporting 10 their government earn
ings OF 1000 per cent"
Mrs. Cunningham referred 10 the
Shepherd-Towner, or the so-caIied
Maternity bill, for the protection of
mothers and infants. which was passed
BY the Senate yesterday. The bin pro-
vides for fifty-nffy plan by which the
national government matches appro-
priations from the states for the study
of conditions affecting children in the
United States. One would think We
should need only TO tell an advanced
civilization that there are $4,000 moth
ers dying annually in child birth in
this country; that there are 225. 900
children dying annually in their first
year from almost entirely preventable
causes. But we have been telling our
government this for years and al
though the Maternity bin has before
passed the Senate we have never been
able 70 get 1t out of committee in the
House. The United States. at the
present time, stands seventeenth in
the protection of its mothers and
young children. In other words. il
ls more dangerous to be mother here
than in sixteen other countries where
the study and investigation of facts
relating 20 maternity have progress
ed. Officials from New York State
have estimated that 10000 children
living in New York City today would
have died had New York not carried
on for the past twelve years just the
same sort of work that the Shepherd
Towaer bill seeks TO make possible in
every state. These things Mrs.
Cunningham declared. ARE woman's
business. We don't care to be in
different If we are to keep our tryst
with the boys who carried American
guns into French trenches. There is
a country's need in peace as well as
IN war. | appeal to the American
woman to measure up to it,"
Dean Robinson OF the Women's Col
ege presented the speaker and pre-
sided al the meeting.