The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1935-01-08
Maternity Aid
Drive Planned
In Sub-SessiOn
Women Tell of Hardship
Forced on Their Sex
By Economic Crisis
BY GRACE HUTCHINS
(Speeial 10 the Daily Workerl


Especial to the Daily WORKER
Don't push the Negro women
workers away from you. Draw
them closer. They are a little
afraid of you. But when they I'M
derstand that you want them they
will work with you for social insur-
ance. Help them and get them to
help you in the fight for the Work
ers' Bill"
Mary Sidney of Detroit, Michigan,
was speaking at the women's sub
session of the National Congress for
Unemployment and Social Insur-
ance Monday morning. Her voice
rose clearly above the heavier voice
of men delegates meeting in sub
sessions in other parts of the audi
forum. She was calling for wider
front and more united action be-
tween Negro and white women in
working for the Bill, H. R. 1927.
Quite a united front already these
400 women delegates at the Con-
gress represented. A rubber worker,
who is member of the Y. w. G. A.
in Providence, R. l., member OF
the Socialist Party in Reading, Pa,
newspaper woman from a met
ropolitan daily, an alumna of the
Bryn Mawr Summer School for
women workers, and a man who
recognizes the Importance of women
among the unemployed in Wau-
kegan, Illinois.
These and a number of others
spoke on the problems of women
in relation to unemployment and
social insurance at a lively session,
of which Clara Bodian, secretary OF
the United Council of Working
Glass Women, was the chairman.
For Maternity Insurance
After a report by Margaret CoWl,
editor of the Working Woman, on
what is involved in maternity in
surance and Women's Bill Of
Rights, Mrs. Nelson of the Reading
Socialist Party described what she
saw last summer in the Soviet
Union. AS worker in the Reading
birth control clinic, she knows at
first hand what working class
women in the United States are up
against, how they cannot get the
information they so desperately
need on spacing and limiting the
number of their children. She was
much impressed by the contrast
between this situation and the pro-
lection of women in the U. S. S. R.
Jessie O'Connor of the American
League Against War and Fascism
in Pittsburgh pointed out that the
present birth control laws represent
class legislation, since every woman
with money enough to consult a
private physician learns as a mat
ter of course how to control the
number of children she has. But
/ for lack of such information work
ing class mothers often resort to
poisonous medicines or worthless
contraceptives. Included in the
struggle for maternity insurance
must be the demand for amend
ment of Section oil and other anti
birth control sections of the Grim
inal Code.
Speaking for jobless single women
in the hard coal region of Pennsyl-
vania, Stella Mailey of the Bryn
Mawr Summer School almunae as
ISOLATION stated that ten per cent
of the girls in one mining town
were driven to sell themselves in
prostitution because they could find
no jobs of any kind.
Mary Borich of West Virginia
spoke for those who live in isolated
mining camps. Although i'll from
tuberculosis, dropsy or other dis
eases. miners wives must go on
having more children and nursing
them when they have not money
| to buy milk.
How to Work for H. r. 1927
On practical methods of organ
ization to work for the passage of
the Workers Bill III. R. 2827) there
were many plans proposed. Made
| lima Rodina, rubber worker of
Providence, R. l., finds that most of
the girls in industry in her center
are not organized in any trade
union, but do belong to the Y. w.
C. A. She urged the delegates to
join that organization and become
acquainted with the girls who are
members.
Dora Rich of the United Council
of Working Glass Women, New
/ York, described the need of social
insurance among the wives of job
less workers and other women at
home. Through such an organiza-
ton as the Councils, women may
unite in support of the Workers
Bill. Representing the American
Federation of Labor Committee for
Unemployment Insurance, Charlotte
Todes appealed to the delegates to
work for the bill in the trade
unions, especially in those indus
tries where there are more women
than men, as in the needle trades.
Members of womens auXiliaries
should press for the bill within
their own organizations. Dorothy
Mcconnell spoke on the work of the
American League Against War and
Fascism in organizing women.
Don't put this convention away
in bureau drawer and forget
about it when you get home" said
Ella Reeve (Mother) Bloor, as the
suh-session drew to close. Follow
it up in your local center with a
determined campaign for immediate
relief for jobless workers"
Later, amidst waves of applause,
an ovation that marked one of the
high points in the Congress, Mother
Bloor brought a report from the
womens sub-session to the main
body of the Congress-
Women can fight even better