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Mr. HUDDLESTON. Of course, there is much to be said on both sides of that question. Assuming that there is a governmental responsibility, that it is not a 5-year responsibility?

Doctor GARDINER. No, sir.

(The following papers were submitted by the proponents of the bill.)

HON. JAMES S. PARKER,

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY WOMEN,
Washington, D. C., January 20, 1931.

Chairman Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce.

Washington, D. C.

DEAR MR. PARKER: For the information of the committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce of the House of Representatives I take pleasure in transmitting to you the position of the American Association of University Women in regard to the continuation of Federal maternity and infancy.

The association indorsed the original Sheppard-Towner bill and successive extensions. At annual and biennial meetings the vote of the delegates has been unanimous to support Federal aid for maternity and infancy to be administered by the Children's Bureau. For nearly a decade, therefore, the members of the association have interested themselves in the measure and have become familiar with the administration of the measure by the Children's Bureau. We believe that the Children's Bureau has proved to be a highly efficient and sympathetic agency for administering the law.

We see no incongruity in arrangement by which State health and welfare departments may receive Federal aid, advice, and guidance from the Children's Bureau in the field of maternity and infancy, where social service technique is so important, and at the same time on other subjects receive Federal aid, advice, and guidance from the United States Public Health Service. Under our form of government State bureaus and departments do not hold up to Federal bureaus and departments. On the other hand, Federal bureaus render many services to the States through advice and guidance, with and without Federal money grants.

The legislative committee is directed to support the continuation of the maternity and infancy services by Federal aid to be administered by the Children's Bureau. The Jones bill (S. 255) which has already passed the Senate would enact this principle into law, and we hope that the House committee will report favorably a bill which embodies all the provisions of the Jones bill. The legislative committee is not authorized to support provisions for Federal aid and administration of public health not connected with maternity and infancy.

Respectfully submitted.

HARLEAN JAMES,

Acting Chairman Committee on Legislation.

Hon. JAMES S. PARKER,

AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS,
Chicago, Ill., January 19, 1981.

Chairman Interstate Commerce Committee, Washington, D. C. MY DEAR Mr. PARKER: The American Federation of Teachers earnestly petitions your committee to give immediate favorable consideration to S. 255, providing for the conduct of maternity and infancy welfare work under the administration of the Children's Bureau, in the United States Department of Labor.

We know full well that it is not necessary to appeal to you and to your committee for support in behalf of the principle embodied in S. 255. You have long proved to use that you are interest in securing to the children of this country those benefits which this legislation has given them in the past, and which it now seeks to make available to them again.

The American Federation of Teachers is also deeply interested in the proposal before your committee embodied in H. R. 12995, providing for a general rural health program, and we hope that in the not too distant future the benefits herein provided may be also available.

However, because of the present legislative situation which you know far better than we do, and as you and your committee have in the past been so favorably disposed to the legislation provided for in S. 255, we feel that we

may be sure that your continued sincere interest in this work will dispose you to support, not only the principal of S. 255 as you have done in the past, but to steer this measure in such a way as to prevent its entanglement with any legislative hazards at this time.

May I again thank you and your committee on the behalf of the American Federation of Teachers for your support of this measure in the past and express to you our faith that you and your committee will continue to support this work, and make its benefits immediately available to the children of the Nation.

Respectfully yours,

SELMA BORCHARDT,

Legislative Representative American Federation of Teachers.

STATEMENT PRESENTED BY MISS ALICE L. EDWARDS, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY OF THE AMERICAN HOME ECONOMICS ASSOCIATION

The association was one of the organizations which worked for the passage of the Sheppard-Towner bill and later for its reenactment.

It heartily supports S. 255 and is in a position to support those portions of H. R. 12995 pertaining to maternity and infancy which are in harmony with the provisions of S. 255.

The association is not in a position to support the other provisions of H. R. 12995 as it had insufficient opportunity to study the bill before its last convention, hence no action relative to the measure could be taken at that time. The president of the association has sent the accompanying letter to be submitted to the committee.

Hon. JAMES E. PARKER,

AMERICAN HOME ECONOMICS ASSOCIATION,

January 20, 1931.

Chairman, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce,

Washington, D. C.

DEAR SIRS: The American Home Economics Association is keenly interested in measures providing for the health and welfare of mothers and children because it recognizes their intimate relation to the improvement of home and community life, the aim for which the Association was organized.

The Association has considered with keen appreciation the activities car. ried on under the Sheppard-Towner Act. It believes that the lives of mothers and infants have been preserved. It further believes that because of the health education made available, thousands of others have profited through the enjoyment of better health, which in itself is of sufficient social value to justify the expense of the service.

The Association earnestly desires that legislation may be enacted during the present session of Congress which will provide for the reestablishment of the maternity and infancy hygiene service in the States under the adminis tration of the United States Children's Bureau.

Sincerely yours,

FRANCIS L. SWAIN, President.

AMERICAN NURSES' ASSOCIATION,

DIRECTOR AT HEADQUARTERS, JANET M. GEISTER, R. N.,

Hon. JAMES S. PARKER,

Chairman Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee,

January 18, 1931.

Washington, D. C.

The American Nurses' Association composed of State and district branches, with a membership of 87,000 graduate nurses, has supported legislation in favor of federal assistance to mothers and babies under the administration of the Children's Bureau.

It now wishes to go on record as reaffirming this position.
Yours very truly,

CLARA D. NOYES,

Representative American Nurses Association on
Women's Joint Congressional Committee.

The care of young mothers and little children has always enlisted the sympathetic interest of philanthropically minded women. In this respect the Council of Women is no exception. It has taken active part for years in encouraging legislation designed to advance maternity and infant welfare. The Sheppard-Towner bill received its enthusiastic support.

At the present time it is giving its warm indorsement to the Jones Bill believing firmly that the care of young mothers and infants is properly committed to the Children's Bureau, and that this function should not be diverted from it.

The Council, therefore, wishes to reiterate its conviction and record its vote in support of the Jones bill which definately assignes responsibility in connection with maternity and infant welfare to the Children's Bureau.

BERTHA GRIMMELL JUDD,

(Mrs. Orrin R.) President Council of Women for Home Missions.

NATIONAL BOARD OF THE YOUNG WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN
ASSOCIATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
New York, N. Y., January 16, 1931.

Hon. JAMES S. PARKER,

Chairman Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce,

Washington, D. C.

DEAR SIR: Members of the Young Women's Christian Association have been interested for a long time in the efforts promoted by the Federal Government in cooperation with the States for the reduction of infant and maternal mortality and for improving the health of mothers and babies. The National Board of the Young Women's Christian Association began to study this subject in 1920, supported the Sheppard-Towner bill in 1921, and since that time support of the maternity and infancy act has always been included in the program adopted by the biennial national conventions of the association. Reports of the work carried on under the past maternity and infancy law show, we believe, the possibilities for lessening the death rate and for improving the health of mothers and babies and demonstrates the need for continuing this work.

As a woman's organization, we are interested in measures for the conservation of human life. Our experience, particularly through the work of our health education department and through our contact with women in rural communities, with industrial women, and with the foreign-born women, reinforces our belief that this work should be continued. We believe that the Children's Bureau has proved its ability to carry on effective work in this realm, and that its experience should be conserved by continuing the work under its direction. We, therefore, urge that the Children's Bureau be empowered to continue this work as soon as possible, as authorized in the provi sions of S. 255.

Very truly yours,

Mrs. ROBERT E. SPEER, President.

STATEMENT PRESENTED BY THE NATIONAL. CONSUMERS' LEAGUE (INC.)

Gentlemen of the Committee:

JANUARY 20, 1931.

This league appears in behalf of bill S. 255 for the following reasons: 1. Because at this session no other bill can be passed. Of all the various bills proposed or introduced, since May, 1899, to deal with this vitally important subject, no other has been reported by a committee in either House. And the few remaining days afford no adequate opportunity for Congress and the country to become familiar with the provisions of a new and previously alien

measure.

2. Bill S. 255 reestablishing the provisions of the Sheppard-Towner Act is, on the contrary, familiar to members of this committee for several years past. Without repeated favorable votes by this committee the conspicuous reductions in infant death rates could not have been made throughout seven years, 1922 to 1929. Nor could the attention of the Nation have been kept fixed upon our

annual accrual of 26,000 motherless homes due to deaths largely preventable, in childbirth or in connection therewith.

3. Bill S. 255 comes to you confirmed by repeated recent refusals of the Senate to delay or amend it.

4. Bill S. 255 has been before Congress so long, and has been the object of such eager interest of parents in every State in the Union, and of their organizations, as the direct continuation of the Sheppard-Towner Act, that the time is more than ripe for its passage.

5. It has been argued by opponents of bill S. 255 that it is no longer needed because 19 States have since June 30, 1929, appropriated for its purposes amounts equal to or larger than the previous combined total of the Federal and State allotments. But 29 States have not been able to do this. Their mothers and babies are without the safeguards enjoyed by their fellow citizens of richer States. On what basis we respectfully ask, can this discrimination against the less richly endowed States be justified?

6. Because we deplore and protest against the continuance, in more than half the States, of deaths of mothers and children by reason of interruption on June 30, 1929, of the life-saving work done from 1922 to that fatal date; we respectively urge upon your attention the inescapable responsibility which rests upon every member of the House to cut short this cruel delay by passing S. bill 255 in the form adopted by the Senate.

THE NATIONAL CONSUMERS' LEAGUE, By FLORENCE KELLEY, General Secretary.

JANUARY 20, 1931.

To the Members of the Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committees The National Congress of Parents and Teachers favors the larger program embodied in the Cooper bill (H. R. 12995.) We stand not only for maternity aid but are greatly interested in the rural health demonstrations carried on by the United States Public Health Service. We hope that every effort will be made to secure this appropriation this year. We feel that the country desires it and that there will be great disappointment if this appropriation does not materialize.

I am frequently asked how the National Congress of Parents and Teachers show its preference for legislative measures. Does it do it by vote in convention or by a referendum to its entire membership? The vote is taken in convention rather than by referendum. The fact is that we have a membership of about one and one-half million. Should we, whenever a new policy came up, take a vote by referendum on that policy, it must be evident to the least mathematical mind that our association would soon go into bankruptcy. Possibly one vote would bankrupt it, for polling a million and one-half people is an extremely expensive method of procedure. The fact is we take our vote in the only practical way, in a convention of delegates gathered from every State. If what we favored in convention did not meet with the approval of the States, we should quickly hear from the States.

Our legislative leaflet has carried since 1928 a call for "adequate and if necessary increasing appropriations in behalf of child welfare and the reduction of infant and maternal mortality," these appropriations to be given to the Childrens Bureau. It has also carried a call for "extra appropriation for the Rural Health Service of the United States Public Health Service." No single objection has ever come to us to either of these proposals.

We, therefore, believe that we are justified in favoring the principles embodied in the Cooper bill. We hope that speedy action may be taken.

ELIZABETH TILTON,

National Chairman, Legislation National Congress

LEGISLATION

of Parents and Teachers.

WHY LEGISLATION

This leaflet gives information about the legislative program of the National Congress of Parents and Teachers.

Legislation is the high tide of civic work. Good things are tried out in separate communities. Having thus proved their worth, the call comes to

give the virtue that is in them to a whole State or nation. To do this means legislation, the enactment of a state-wide or nation-wide law. For example, the physical training that was carried on in a few schools, by the enactment of a State law, comes to be carried on in all the schools, and whereas formerly a few were helped, now thousands are benefited.

There is no better, no more far-reaching investment of energy than that put into effecting the passage of a beneficent law. It means aid to millions. To use Emerson's phrase, great laws are "grand strokes of rectitude, bold benevolences." Put some of your energy into legislation, indulge in grand strokes of rectitude that millions may be helped.

In our legislative measures we are not favoring decentralization, that is, 48 different State by State, treatments of such common evils as illiteracy, liquor, child labor. We believe such common evils need nation-wide action.

It is hoped the local parent-teacher associations will give serious consideration to the subject of legislation. The State chairman in each State will welcome inquiries from local associations and information about activities and needs. They will gladly give any assistance desired. A careful study of the resolutions adopted by the National Congress is recommended, with special attention to legislative recommendations.

WHAT TO DO!

Experience has taught your national legislative chairman that brevity gets her message across. So briefly below is our legislative program. Send indorsement to your two United States Senators and your Congressmen; also send to your local press. Thus is a nation carpeted with the education that passes the law.

1. Peace.-(1) Outlawry of war. (2) Reduction of armaments by international agreement. (3) The World Court. (4) Some lasting organization of nations. (5) Education in international understanding.

2. Proper observance and enforcement of all laws.-Prohibition: Strict and impartial enforcement of the eighteenth amendment with no change in the Volstead Act that would readmit wine or beer or otherwise weaken enforcement. 3. Proper safeguards against poor films. The principles embodied in the Brookhart (movie) bill prohibiting block booking and blind booking of films. 4. Public health demonstration for rural districts.-This means an extra appropriation for the Rural Health Service of the United States Public Health Service.

5. Prevention of infant mortality.-Maintenance of the Children's Bureau with adequate, and if necessary, increasing appropriations in behalf of child welfare and the reduction of infant and maternal mortality.

6. Public schools.-The education bill calling for a separate department of education with a secretary in the Cabinet. This bill calls for a small appropriation but does not call for any Federal aid for the States.

EXPLANATIONS

Peace. At the annual convention of the National Congress of Parents and Teachers, held in Washington, D. C., in May, 1929, the statement of fundamental ideals of purposes included the following: "War between nations as a means of settling disputes is a crime against civilization." The Congress "would build into the lives of children such ideals of justice, good will, and cooperation, as will remove the causes of war and lead to universal peace." One of the resolutions declared "the present movement to outlaw war worthy of the highest consideration" and urged "our members to plan programs of information looking to a thorough understanding of the principles involved." Thus the National Congress made itself ready to work for the principles involved in multilateral treaties between the great powers outlawing war. We must remember, however, that should war become illegal-as the United States has made alcoholic beverages-it would be more than ever necessary to establish enforcement machinery, such as the World Court and common places of conference similar to the League of Nations. does not markedly change our program for and for some lasting organization of nations. World Court.

The outlawry of war, therefore, entrance into the World Court Work now for entrance to the

For literature on this topic write: The Junior Red Cross, Washington, D. C.; Dr. Augustus O. Thomas, president World Federation of Education Associa

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