PROTECTION OF MATERNITY.
25
Now, I think on this bill that women “is came.” I think that she
“is came” in a somewhat hysterical and sentimental way sometimes,
because there are always women who are hysterical and sentimental
about everything. We know that we are not perfect, and while we
have come here in a very well-organized capacity, as I am very glad
they have come, then others have come here in an unorganized way,
not the women who have been fighting for women's rights, but the
women who really have not cared much about women's rights, but
who have cared a'great deal for men's rights. Let me say that there
is no woman living to whom I owe half as much as I do to a half a
dozen men. I was fortunate in having a good father and a good
brother and innumerable good boy friends in my girlhood, and 1 was
married when I was 18 years old to a very good man, and I have had
three sons, and my opinion of mankind has' always been very high
until this last year, when I began to wonder if I was mistaken.
I never cared for women's rights, and I never worried about my
rights, and my opinion of man was very high, although I say that
with this bill I hope it will pass for the sake of the 25,000 who annually
die because of lack of proper care. I will say that I am a very happy
woman.
There is not a day goes by that I am not glad that every one of
my children is a boy, who will not know the suffering through which a
woman passes. I sincerely hope that this bill may pass for the sake
of the 200,000 who are dying each year, and for the future of our
country. It is shown that Italy is the only country in which the
population has increased since the war, and in Italy there is not a
village where there is not at least a registered woman going out as a
midwife to help women in childbirth, but more than all, I wish
that it might pass for the sake of the men of this Nation. I thank
you.
(Whereupoon at 11.50 a. m. an adjournment was taken until
Thursday, April 28, 1921, at 10.30 o’clock a. m.)