4. Are you the chief wage earner? 671 or 66.7 percent of the mothers are the chief wage earners. 334 or 33.3 percent of the mothers are not the chief wage earners. 1,005 total. 5. Would you be willing to pay more than 50 cents per day for the care of your child? 857 or 85.2 percent of the mothers are willing to pay more.2 148 or 14.7 percent of the mothers are not willing to pay more or cannot afford to pay more. 1,005 total. 2 Of the 857 mothers who are willing to pay more EXHIBIT 66 CLEVELAND 13, OHIO. Hon. ROBERT W. CROSSER, House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. DEAR SIR: Isn't there something that can be done to keep the day-care centers open? A large number of women are desperately in need of this service. I am a widow with three children, one girl 13, one girl 12, and a boy 5. It is my duty and my desire to support these children in a decent, self-respecting way. If I have to stop work to care for the little boy there will be no other alternative but to exist on charity. I had to board him away from me for about 2 years and believe me there is nothing more heartbreaking. It seems to me it would be much cheaper and kinder, for Government to partially finance a day-care center than to support entire families. In my case it would certainly be much cheaper considering the fact that I have three young children who must be fed, housed, and clothed, but only one who needs day care. Respectfully yours, EXHIBIT 67 MARY G. KANE. Hon. ROBERT CROSSER, CLEVELAND CHAPTER, NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD, House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. DEAR CONGRESSMAN CROSSER: The Cleveland Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild endorsed the report of its committee on social legislation asking for emergency legislation to extend for a period of at least 6 months the Federal aid which is now available for child-care centers under the Lanham Act of August 1942. We realize that a permanent program for Federal assistance in child welfare is covered in Senate bill 1038 introduced by Senator Pepper and others. We ask your support for this bill or its equivalent as a regular legislative answer to the long-term needs of this situation. In the city of Cleveland there are now 40 day care centers giving aid to 1,600 children. More than half the cost has been furnished through the Federal Works Agency and this aid is to be terminated on October 13, 1945. The day-care program is quite obviously tied with the service of parents in the armed forces. The day care program can no more be terminated overnight than all the fathers serving in the Army can be returned home at once. Will you kindly review the facts in this situation and we should appreciate a statement from you as to what emergency legislation or adminstrative action is possible to provide for the gradual liquidation of the present day-care services over a period of at least 6 months. Very truly yours, NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD, President, Cleveland Chapter. EXHIBIT 68 STATEMENT RE BILL S. 1318 The bill (S. 1318) to enable States to provide and maintain maternal and child-health services is one of the soundest and most promising legislative proposals since the end of the war. It faces squarely and with some measure of adequacy social and health problems both fundamental and urgent. For of what permanent value are victory and strength of arms for a nation of physically impoverished children? It was the emergency demand for physically fit youth that revealed the deep and distressing physical inadequacies of our youth. We say with easy speech that the future of our country means the future of our children; yet we have been hesitant in the past to invest in that future for constructive purposes even a fraction of what we invested in saving the country in war. There is a greater morality, statesmanship, and patriotism in supporting a measure that will allow to all elements of our population the opportunity for a fuller development of their powers. This program begins with the children, for early deficiencies in their physical care, in their education, and in their environment, as has already been so convincingly demonstrated, render it impossible for them to make in their later years the kind of contribution that will strengthen the Nation at the same time that it enriches their own lives. It is an unfortunate fact that, in the present constitution of our population, the largest number of children are in the States and in the families that have fewest economic resources. No basic issue of initiative or human worth in involved, for poverty and physical disability make a vicious circle which obscures these human values. We are all one Nation and one people and our national resources cannot in justice be inflexibly fixed in inequality by the accident of geography or birth. Up to now we have taken a few small and halting steps to remedy certain inequalities and to help States provide certain services to children and youth, but it is obvious from the way in which these steps have been taken that there are still those who are not yet ready to give an unequivocal "yes" to the question, "Is equal opportunty for America's children a national responsibility?" Conversion to our own democratic philosophy would be a tremendous step forward— for it would help to reduce the problem of Federal aid and cooperation with the States in such matters as child health, welfare, and education to a question of the best means to the end instead of the present situation in which each suggestion for the extension of Federal aid for services to children is made the occasion for a new battle over the principle itself. We have the opportunity now to demonstrate our faith in our children and in the security and promise of our future as a nation. The Fraternal Order of Eagles, the organization of the average American, with more than 1,300 lodges throughout the Nation, and with close to 1,300,000 members, is glad of an opportunity to register its support for the Maternal and Child Welfare Act, sponsored by United States Senator Claude Pepper of Florida. Scores of lodges have already passed resolutions endorsing the principles of the proposed legislation. As chairman of the newly created Eagles national child health commission, which was established to plan and put into effect an Eagle child-welfare program, I am particularly happy to represent the order in the presentation of its views on the child-health problem. Early in the history of the Eagles, our order recognized the home as the basic foundation of our democratic civilization. Every Eagle is pledged to make his home the abiding place of thoughts and acts wholesome and righteous. With this inherent love of home and family ingrained in every true Eagle, the order has led a crusade for laws to safeguard the lives and happiness of our people. The order was a leader in the fight for the first mothers' pension law in the history of America-the Missouri law. Today all States have mothers' pension laws. The order was a leader in the fight for the first workmen's compensation law in American-the Wisconsin law. Today all States have workmen's compensation laws. The order pioneered for the dependent old men and women. The first State old-age pension law, that of Montana, was sponsored by an Eagle member of the legislature, was backed by the Eagles, and was signed by an Eagle Governor. Today all States have old-age-pension laws. It was the Eagles back in 1921 who first campaigned for a national socialsecurity law, and who spent more than a million dollars on an educational campaign in behalf of such legislation. The late President Roosevelt, in signing the act, paid tribute to the Eagles for their part in its passage, and presented the order with the pen with which he signed the measure. With such a history of humanitarian service behind us, it is but natural that our fraternity would recognize the great need for a constructive program for child health in this postwar period. One of the important program slogans of the Eagles is "a chance at a real childhood for every child." Our order has given more than lip services to such an objective. Eagles have concentrated on a program to prevent juvenile delinquency, and to further this aim created a national youth guidance commission, which has aided lodges in various communities to promote wholesome undertakings for the young, youth centers, athletic activities, and the like. In 1941 the Eagles, at a cost of over $100,000, erected a dormitory for Father Flanagan's Boys' Town. Recently, in Port Arthur, Tex., the Eagles initiated and successfully carried to completion a drive for funds to construct a dormitory for the Thomas W. Hughen School for Crippled Children. Eagles took special recognition of child-health day, May 1. It is significant to note, too, that in establishing a memorial foundation fund, raised by the donations from lodges and individual Eagles, to honor Eagle servicemen, that one of the major uses of this fund will be to educate the children of Eagles' heroes who lost their lives in World War II. Thus in deeds and in action, Eagles have shown their great interest in the welfare and future of our youth. There are no programs which the order has sponsored that have been backed so wholeheartedly and enthusiastically by our 1,000,000 membership as those designed to advance the welfare of our youth. The principle of Federal aid for underprivileged children was endorsed by Eagles in their support of the school-lunch bill for Federal appropriations to States. A measure which has been enacted into law with its passage by Congress and the signature of President Truman. The order believes that the Maternal and Child Welfare Act is legislation which will further insure our youth a more healthful and happy childhood, and hence build better and more useful citizens. Federal Government has a definite stake in the future of our youth. It was the late President Franklin D. Roosevelt who said that "No greater obligation faces the Government than to justify the faith of its young people in the fundamental rightness of our democratic institutions and to preserve their strength, loyalty, and idealism against the time when they must assume the responsibilities." If that is true, then certainly it is the duty of our Government to take every precaution to assure our youth that they will assume the responsibilities of citizenship, sound in mind and sound in body. It is not only a matter of individual happiness, it is a matter, too, of good Government. The Eagles believe that the principles of the Maternal and Child Welfare Act are sound and progressive. They believe also that the measures proposed to provide medical care and health services for mothers and children, and childwelfare services, and to assure desperately needed help for children without the proper parental care and supervision, are essential to the future well-being of our Nation. The programs proposed, indeed, are those which the Eagles have ardently championed for many years, and the act, incorporating as it does action planned under the Social Security Act, which the Eagles helped to enact into law, meet with the wholehearted approval of our great fraternity. The Social Security Act left the way open for Federal aid to State programs for maternal, child-health, and crippled-children programs, and for child-welfare services, and the proposed Maternal and Child Welfare Act is a measure which implements one of the original purposes of social security. The means by which funds, under the act, would be allocated to the States, the grants-in-aid principle, is an integral part of the Social Security Act. Eagles have long supported the specific measures proposed by the Maternal and Child Welfare Act. Well-baby clinics have been approved, and, in some instances, sponsored and set up by units of our order. The other medical services proposed, medical and hospital care when children are sick, school health services, dental care, mental health, and child-guidance clinics are steps that have the hearty endorsement of our order as safeguards to the welfare of our future citizens. The proposed Maternal and Child Welfare Act will fill a definite void in the health services provided our Nation, and particularly among underprivileged groups and in more remote sections of the country. The act will save the lives of thousands of mothers and children. It will provide good health to thousands of others who may be otherwise doomed to life-long misery and inefficiency. It will make for a more happy and more sound America. Dr. FRED C. DILLEY, Chairman, Eagles National Child Health Commission. EXHIBIT 70 CHICAGO, ILL., June 25, 1946. SENATOR CLAUDE PEPPER, Senate Chambers, Washington, D. C.: Child Welfare Committee Church Federation, Greater Chicago, urges your influence in bringing S. 1318 to passage by Senate. KATHERINE W. SELLERS, Chairman, Child Welfare Committee, Department of Social Service, EXHIBIT 71 STATEMENT BY THE UNITED COUNCIL OF CHURCH WOMEN IN REGARD TO THE MATERNAL AND CHILD WELFARE ACT (S. 1318) PRESENTED BY MRS. THEODORE O. WEDEL, CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE ON CHRISTIAN SOCIAL RELATIONS, UCCW * * * * * It is my privilege, as chairman of the committee on Christian social relations of the United Council of Church Women, to register the wholehearted support of this organization for S. 1318, the Maternal and Child Welfare Act. Our organization, which includes over 10,000,000 Protestant women, in all the major denominations, has its membership scattered over the entire country, in cities, towns, and rural areas. The health and welfare of children is one of our primary concerns. We have conducted many informal studies of the condition of children in various parts of the country, and have been appalled at the unequal distribution of health and welfare services. It is of serious concern to us that so many children are deprived of even minimum health care, either because of the economic status of the family, or because of the lack of facilities in the community where these children live. We find it especially distressing to note that very often those areas with the largest number of children are the same ones which are least able to provide adequate health and welfare services. Because the health of the children is a matter of national concern, and because we know that many States are less able than others to provide adequate service, we believe that nothing less than a national program for maternal and child welfare will be adequate. There are a number of features of this bill which we especially commend. One is the fact that it takes into account the fact that there is not, at the present time, an adequate number of trained specialists in the various fields covered in the bill, and makes provision for the training of such specialists. Secondly, we are pleased that the bill specifically includes mental health as well as physical health. Thirdly, we are pleased that the bill allows no discrimination because of race, creed, color, or national origin, and also that it does not require a "means" test, which we feel often prevents worthy people from availing themselves of such services because of pride. In spite of the wealth, resources, and scientific knowledge of this country, we know that vast numbers of our children are simply not within reach of any proper medical or social care. We feel sure that a measure such as this will be the most effective way possible to spread such services to every community. Any amount of money which may be spent on such a program will, we are convinced, be more than made up by the saving of the life and health of our people, and by the prevention of delinquency and maladjustments in childhood, which often lead to serious consequences in adult life. We commend the bill, further, because it covers both health and welfare. We are convinced that they cannot be separated—that many physical problems arise out of social maladjustments, and that many of the behavior problems of children have unsuspected physical causes. We are glad, too, that the bill provides for the Children's Bureau as the administrative agency. Like many of the other women of this country, we have for more than 20 years learned to trust the Children's Bureau. We know it to be efficient, honest, and uncompromising in the standards which it sets for the children of the country. We have seen the efficiency with which it has administered the emergency maternal and infant care program, and we feel sure that it can just as ably handle this larger, and even mor urgent, program. EXHIBIT 72 The Honorable CLAUDE PEPPER, Washington, D. C. LUTHERAN SERVICE CENTER, DEAR SIR: Recently it was my privilege to review the bill, Maternal and Child Welfare Act of 1945 submitted by you, for a class in a graduate school of social service. The consensus of the class and the instructor was that this bill has much merit and that we as a class interested in the welfare of humanity add our voices in assent and compliment on presenting such an outstanding bill. We would be delighted in being informed of the progress and eventual passage of this bill. Any information regarding this bill and kindred materials would be appreciated since I have been asked to make this matter a class project during the coming school year. All information will be shared with the class. We ask that you advise us how to obtain 12 additional copies of your speech Maternal and Child Welfare Act of 1945. These copies are to be distributed to the members of the class and all expenses involved will be borne by me. Wishing you and your colleagues success in the passage of this bill, I remain, Respectfully yours, LEON K. ZUMMAK. EXHIBIT 73 DECEMBER 21, 1945. U. S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, Children's Bureau, Washington 25, D. C. DETAILED COMPARISON OF PROVISIONS IN S. 1606, TITLE I, PART B (WAGNER-MURRAYDINGELL BILL) AND IN S. 1318 (MATERNAL AND CHILD WELFARE ACT OF 1945)2 1 This statement has been prepared for the use of those persons who wish to make a comparison study of S. 1606, title I, part B, and S. 1318. The topics in this statement do not necessarily follow the exact organization or language in either bill. The subject headings in the comparison statement, however, can easily be identified in either bill. 1 Also H. R. 4730. 2 Also H. R. 3922, H. R. 3994, and H. R. 4059. |