38 
PROTECTION OF MATERNITY. 
Mrs. Gibbs. We did not even know that the bill was to be taken 
up again, and we -sound it out only by our chairman making a very 
great effort to get a hearing. We have not found that you are at all 
eager for us to come 
The Chairman. You are absolutely wrong about that. 
Mrs. Gibbs. Well, I am only too glad to do anything I can. I 
came here as a patriotic citizen who objects to this type of legislation, 
and I know that many of the doctors will object to it if you give them 
half a chance to do so. 
Senator Warren. Don’t you think it would be better to allow this 
woman to finish her testimony now 1 
Mrs. Gibbs. I will be very glad to come again and to give any 
information that I can. she Maryland organization has never 
brought this question up before it. Dr. Knox in our State carries a 
o-reaf deal of weight, and he is a very prominent obstetrician and 
pediatrician, and is at the head of the Mount Wilson Sanitarium, an 
institution that is given over to the ('♦ire of babies and he writes: 
My Dear Mrs. Gibbs: In reference to the Sheppard-Towner bill about which you 
have spoken to me would say I am in favor of any general movement which will 
increase the proper care furnished to mothers and young children throughout the 
country. It seems to me that the final decision as to the kind of care furnished by 
the several States to mothers and babies should rest not in a single bureau as is pro 
posed in the present bill, but in a small company of physicians all experts 
in obstetrics and pediatrics, entirely removed from politics. . . „ „ 
I wish some such modification could be introduced in this bill before it is finally 
passed. 
Now, Dr. George W. Dobbin, one of the leading obstetricians in 
Baltimore, and a man who has gone into this question, also indorses 
the statement of Dr. Knox, and is very anxious to appear at this 
hearing this morning, but at such short notice he could not come here 
owing to an engagement with a patient and he had to say that he 
indorses everything that Dr. Knox said. 
Now, it seems to me that this bill is a fraudulent pretense, in the 
name of maternity, to allow amateur investigators to get theii tiaxel- 
ing expenses, draw salaries, and office expenses, and I do not real lx 
see how they are going to get very far with that kind of thing. I here 
is no excuse, there is no reason for experimentation, and have women 
go to work for the Federal Government on any work that can be 
done in their own States. - 
Noxv, as to this D. A. R. indorsement, I want to say that 1 am a 
member of the D. A. R., and it has never been discussed before our 
association. Mrs. Kenyon, of the League of Women Voters, told 
you how in Minnesota this thing was railroaded through. They 
could not discuss it because Carrie Chapman Catt said that it uould 
have to s;o through. It is a high-handed thing, the abuse of this 
poxver. and then'has been tremendous influence to railroad this 
thing through. 
Noxv some of you gentlemen were not on the former committee, 
and you have not heard discussed what appears in the report of the 
hearings before the House Committee, but you will find that the 
Massachusetts Civic Alliance submitted testimony declaring that 
6,000 physicians had been canvassed and only 1 in 20 favored 
Government interference. The main objections were that it tends 
toward socialism and governmental paternalism, and would promote 
illegitimacy and the procreation of the most unfit; that the physi-