PROTECTION OF MATERNITY. 
23 
It was thought by some that not enough attention was given to the 
women in industry, and a separate department was created, with 
special interests and responsibilities, and so on. 
I do not think that a bureau devoted to the interest of wage 
earning women is in a position to take up this technical piece of 
work in which we have been engaged for nine years. I do not 
presume to say how many overheads there may be, but if we can 
not invite the young people, and the people of education to come 
in, we shall get a very machinelike way of dealing with these matters, 
which are social and economical and scientific, and we shall not be 
able to maintain them as social and economical and scientific fea 
tures very long. . 
Senator Warren. Do you think that we are getting results in 
subdividing and having separate heads under one broad line? Do 
you think that it is worth all of the extra expense in order to do 
that way, rather than to have, a bureau of the department in con 
nection with the head of the department ? 
Miss Lathrop. No; there is before Congress a proposition con 
solidating and trying to make fewer departments, and there is a 
great deal of thought and a great deal of work in regard to it. 
Senator Warren. I would like to know what you think about 
that, whether tins Children’s Bureau or Women’s Bureau, or the 
bureau having to do with the women in labor, whether there is to 
be perfect harmony with all of those, or whether this added expense 
with the prevailing wages, which are double what they used to be, 
whether the physicians wbo go out and the general superintendents 
who go out, whether they can do the work for all of the divisions 
and gain for you the information regarding the conditions at the 
various points in all of the different lines, whether it is better to have 
it that way, or whether it is better to have different people for the 
different lines traveling all of the time ? 
Miss Lathrop. Of course, the Children’s Bureau is a bureau 
primarily of investigation and research. If this law goes into effect, 
it would add some administrative duties, but its real duties would 
be comparatively little changed. 
Senator Warren. Along these lines, you already suggested that 
this bill originated with you. In originating this, I think you pro 
vided for a separate head for it, but now Congress has changed that, 
and are you prepared to say that childbirth, and all of the various 
activities, this care of the children, etc., should be all together, or 
that it should be subdivided again, the maternity and the care of 
the child which does not come properly under your department ? 
Miss Lathrop. That original bill provided that the law should be 
administered by a board to consist of the Bureau of Education, 
Public Health Service and the Secretary of the Department of Labor, 
and the Children’s Bur^u was to be the executive. In the Senate 
before the bill was passed it was changed, as you have observed, and 
at my special request it was, however, provided that there might be an 
advisory committee created which would consist of a representative 
of the Department of Agriculture and the Public Health Service and 
the Head of the Bureau of Education, because I felt tffat while the 
Children’s Bureau is the recognized head, that field of applied social 
science is one of basic importance to the prosperity of the country, 
that it must be understood that the special sciences of medicine,