Page images
PDF
EPUB

NATIONAL WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE OF AMERICA,
Washington 1, D. C., June 24, 1946.

The Honorable JAMES E. MURRAY,

Chairman, Senate Committee on Education and Labor,

United States Congress, Washington 25, D. C.

DEAR SENATOR MURRAY: The National Women's Trade Union League wishes to go on record in support of S. 1318, which provides for the health and welfare of mothers and children and for services to crippled children.

First of all, may we point out that the league is for a national health program with, as nearly as possible, an over-all coverage, and we testified to this effect at the hearings on S. 1606. However, we recognize the prime importance of better health and medical services for maternal and child care and for crippled children and are, therefore, in favor of the principles and objectives of S. 1318. Services to mothers and children are not included in the contributory insurance system in S. 1606, and so there is need for additional provisions for FederalState services for those not covered by the insurance system. We feel keenly that society has a responsibility to make possible adequate health services for all children, and we have absolute faith in the integrity of the Children's Bureau and those persons who administer and promote the program for the welfare of mothers and children. We cannot forget that the Children's Bureau blazed a trail by awakening the public conscience to the unnecessary and cruel loss of life each year because of inadequate maternal and infant health services.

However, the league would want the provisions of S. 1318, if enacted, to fit in closely with any over-all health program. It would be not only inefficient administratively, but also very confusing to the workers, to have to go to three or four different Government agencies for health services for their families. Sincerely yours,

EXHIBIT 50

ELISABETH CHRISTMAN,

Secretary-Treasurer.

INTERNATIONAL UNION, UNITED AUTOMOBILE,
AIRCRAFT, AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENT
WORKERS OF AMERICA (UAW-CIO),
April 23, 1946.

HONORABLE SIR: On behalf of the delegates of the Convention of the International Union, United Automobile, Aircraft, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, CIO, convened in Atlantic City, N. J., March 23-30, 1946, we submit to you the attached resolutions adopted by the convention expressing the policy of our organization on child care and child labor.

We solicit your full support and cooperation to the promotion of the proper legislation advancing the principles contained in these resolutions herewith attached.

Yours sincerely,

GEORGE F. ADDES, International Secretary-Treasurer (By order of the International Convention, UAW-CIO).

CHILD CARE

Whereas the UAW-CIO has long been concerned with and contributed to the improvement of community services and facilities for the care and development of children; and

Whereas many States and communities are unable to provide adequate services and facilities for children and must have the assistance of the Federal Government if such services and facilities are to be widely available; and

Whereas, with the termination of the Lanham Act, aid to the day care of children and the inadequate provision of child welfare services now made under the Social Security Act, the Federal Government is not now doing its share in protecting and promoting well-being of our children: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, (1) That this Tenth Convention of UAW-CIO support any Federal legislation, such as the Pepper bill (S. 1318), that will put necessary welfare

services within reach of all chilrden who need them, including day care for children of working mothers, recreational and other services that will cut down on juvenile delinquency, and care for dependent and neglected children.

(2) That we work to make nursery schools a permanent part of our school structure, free to all parents in the community wishing to avail themselves of the opportunity.

Hon. CLAUDE PEPPER,

EXHIBIT 51

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR NURSERY EDUCATION,
Garden City, Long Island, N. Y., June 20, 1946.

Senate Office Building, Washington, D. C.

MY DEAR SENATOR PEPPER: I am writing to request you to inform the Senate Committee on Education and Labor of the support of the National Association for Nursery Education for S. 1318, known as the Maternal and Child Welfare Act of 1945.

The National Association for Nursery Education is the organization of the professional workers in many fields-education, medicine, nursing, nutrition, welfare, etc.-who are concerned with the education and well-being of young children.

The wartime experience with the draft dramatized to the lay public the crippling losses in manpower which occur because of inadequate care-both physical and mental-for children during their early formative years. Those of us who have made the study of young children our life's work have known of the crucial importance of these years long before the war. We have known from daily experience that much waste of human capacity-to say nothing of loss of life-can be prevented if funds are made available so that there can be more adequate services to expectant mothers, to mothers of young children, and to children themselves. Our daily experience has taught each one of us that this is a job which States cannot do unaided.

Our organization is on record as strongly favoring Federal aid for the development and continuance of sound programs of maternal and child health and aid to dependent children through regularly established Federal and State agencies. (We are glad to see S. 1318 include under "health" both physical and mental well-being.) We are on record as strongly favoring the appropriation of Federal funds to assist in meeting the needs of the children of working mothers. We are also on record as approving the wisdom of the method of grants-in-aid to States as a general working method.

S. 1318 offers a tremendously important aid in a direction which our professional experience indicates is one of our country's greatest needs. The money to be appropriated under the bill is money for prevention; unless it is spent far greater sums inevitably are spent in the repair of human beings and still more money lost because those human beings are prevented needlessly from contributing all that they could to the general welfare. S. 1318 is a conservation bill, in our opinion, saving for our country its most important asset-its children, its future men and women.

I will be grateful if you can find an opportunity so that the members of the Senate committee may know of our hope that they will speedily give their full approval to this already overdue and vital legislation.

Sincerely,

Senator CLAUDE PEPPER:

JAMES L. HYMES, Jr., President.

EXHIBIT 52

CHICAGO, ILL., June 24, 1946.

Senate Office Building, Washington, D. C. Respectfully urge that your committee act favorably on S. 1318. Health and welfare services for dependent and neglected children must be strengthened. BENTON HOUSE SETTLEMENT STAFF.

EXHIBIT 53

Senator CLAUDE PEPPER:

Senate, Washington, D. C.

BETHLEHEM CRECHE AND SETTLEMENT,
Chicago 9, Ill., June 25, 1946.

Hon. SENATOR PEPPER: We respectfully urge that your committee act favorably on the Senate bill, S. 1318. The health and welfare services for our dependent and neglected children must be strengthened and your bill is far-reaching in its effect.

Sincerely yours,

RUTH B. (Mrs. W. E.) HUNTER, Director.

EXHIBIT 54

CHICAGO, ILL., June 24, 1946.

Senator CLAUDE PEPPER:

Senate Office Building, Washington, D. C.: Respectfully urge that your committee act favorably on bill S. 1318, health and welfare services for dependent children must be strengthened. far-reaching in its effect.

Your bill

ABIGAIL WRIGHT,

Head Resident, Garibaldi Institute.

EXHIBIT 55

CHICAGO, ILL., June 24, 1946.

Hon. CLAUDE PEPPER,

United States Senate, Washington, D. C.: Please do utmost secure passage S. 1318 extending maternal and child care. VIRGIL E. LOWDER,

Secretary, Department of Social Service, Church Federation of Greater Chicago.

Senator CLAUDE PEPPER,

EXHIBIT 56

CHICAGO, ILL., June 24, 1946.

United States Senate Building, Washington, D. C.:

I consider S. 1318 indispensable to welfare of children of the United States and urge early and favorable report and passage.

JACOB KEPECS,

Executive Director, Jewish Children's Bureau of Chicago.

EXHIBIT 57

The Honorable CLAUDE PEPPER:

CHICAGO, ILL., June 25, 1946.

Respectfully urge S. 1318 be approved by your committee and favorably reported to the House. The enactment of this much-needed legislation would be of untold benefit to the children if this country. This is particularly important now when the future of our Nation lies so clearly in the hands of the oncoming generation. M. K. REIKORD, General Director, Illinois Childrens' Home and Society.

[blocks in formation]
[ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

Hon. CLA
Sena!

Absence that follo is testim need for

months s
States th
fronting f
and the in
be it in foster
needs and are
the home. Par
be seen in jails
have suffered ne
ate for the severa
tal service which
of this act while
ices. We can tes
services covered to
of this act."

VFY THE SOCIAL SECURITY ACT INCLUHR

at the time of the passage of the act states. dare divisions within their public-weitar

2mited service, but 11 States made no ST

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

esponsibility for child-welfare worse
... a great degree, to private agencies
Le urban centers child-weitare services were
zecal authorities looked after children T
→ vere orphaned or abandoned; those who ver

cer

[ocr errors]

the was

ted

[ocr errors]

:d those who were court cases or as Starea e ander private auspices, gave some serve vis need for services in behalf of children wo ver rin danger of becoming delinquent, ded. is abundantly clear from test:mony Act was being considered by Congress Sis under 18 years of age were on her means in terms of family disintegrac

[ocr errors]
[merged small][ocr errors]

tenendent and neg

rovide mere g granted fanus ere

are seen

ese ins

he deus

14 SOCIE

seing u

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

erec

[merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][graphic][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small]

vere used to establish the services. In 1942, however, a State appropriation was made for child welfare, and similar appropriations have been continued. In Delware, to cite another example, State funds for child-welfare services were inreased threefold from 1938 to 1944.

The greatest stimulus from the use of Federal moneys has been experienced in he rural areas, where, for the first time, in many instances, the services of a ained child-welfare worker have been made available. Federal funds are beg used to pay the salaries of 651 child-welfare workers, all except a few of hom were working in rural counties. In addition to this aid, Federal money also being used to provide child-welfare workers in areas of special need, or cifically, in places where children are living under extremely unfavorable conions.

So, what was done in the first decade of the social-security program, as far child welfare was concerned, was to establish and set in motion the governntal machinery by which the greater resources of the Federal Government were ught to the assistance of the States, with whom the responsibility rests for welfare of the children.

THE BENEFICIARIES

here is no way of counting the children who benefit from what is done under child-welfare programs under the Social Security Act, for many whom the l-welfare worker never sees are directly affected through advisory and contive work with State and local welfare departments. For instance, a connt may be asked to make a study of a home for deliquent girls, and the recendations made may be far reaching in their consequences. The child-welworker may succeed in arousing community concern over disgraceful condiin jails in which children are being held.

less dramatically, the child-welfare worker may bring the community's atn to the need for a summer day camp or for a recreation hall for children underprivileged neighborhood.

hort, one large part of the child-welfare worker's task is to develop com、 ✓ interest in what is happening to the children, for with that interest once d, much can be done for their protection and care.

or those who are served directly by child-welfare workers each year under te-Federal programs, they are, by and large, a hapless lot of youngsters. are boys and girls for whom a foster home has to be found and the childworker's responsibility is not only to find the home but to see that a satisadjustment is made in it.

of the children are in difficulty in their own homes or in the neighborhood. are children in jails, and children are in jails almost everywhere in try, for few States have as yet provided adequate detention facilities iren. In many instances, they are quartered with adult offenders for d sometimes for weeks. For these children the child-welfare worker okesman, arousing communities to the need for making other provision care. Sometimes, and more and more frequently it happens, the childworker is called to the jail, to make some other arrangement, when for the child's detention.

whom the child-welfare worker aids are children who are in instituthe care of delinquents. Some others are not yet in the jails or the chools, but in the opinion of the community "they are headed there." boys and girls, too, the child-welfare worker serves as a friendly

ho are cared for are the mentally deficient for whom institutional mily care must be found.

rtant group being aided by child-welfare workers are unmarried d their babies. Often the mothers are so young themselves as to n the legal definition of a child. The child-welfare worker is one hese girls can turn in confidence, and they do, and with the help -welfare worker a plan is made for the care of the girl during pregchildbirth and for such time after as she still needs professional ould she decide to relinquish her baby for adoption, again the childker helps in getting the child settled in a home where he will get ate care his mother wants for him. In other adoptions, too, the worker's services are used.

4621

« PreviousContinue »