PROTECTION OF MATERNITY. 
147 
The fact is that the Children’s Bureau at Washington is only to 
examine and approve the plans made by the States, by whom all the 
active control of what is to be done under the bill is to be exercised; 
and to make.the common effort as effective as possible by collating 
the experience of the various States and making the assembled 
material available to all. It will work through its hygiene division 
which is directed by trained physicians, who will be aided by its 
social service and other experts. Its function is to render the same 
valuable service constantly given to the States and to the people by- 
other scientific bureaus of the Government the value of whose work 
is so generally recognized. 
The work of the States is of course that which will involve direct 
contact with the people. It will be done by the child hygiene or 
child welfare divisions of State boards of health or by similar agencies 
which will be under the direction of trained and competent people. 
Nothing in the bill looks to any compulsion of any sort. No State 
need accept the benefits of the bill unless it so chooses. No citizen 
need take advantage of the opportunities offered for advice or instruc 
tion against her will. That many women need and desire such help 
would, we are sure, be denied by no one. The difference of opinion on 
the part of the ladies who have spoken against the measure seems to 
be based upon an opinion that the matter should be made one of 
sporadic charity instead of being put upon the dignified plane of 
public instruction upon which other equally necessary public instruc 
tion has long been placed in the United States. 
Indeed if this bill is a cloak for socialism, bolshevism, or any other 
of the “isms” which are so freely bandied about in these days by 
those who look at things through the spectacles worn by the prin 
cipal opponents of this measure, then the sooner we get rid of the 
much more insidious and far-reaching.menace of the public schools, 
the safer the country will be. 
The talk about “free love” and “birth control” is an attack upon 
the good faith not only of those supporting this bill but of Federal 
and State administrative authorities which is not worth dignifying 
by discussion. I may, however, call to the attention of the committee 
the resolution of indorsement by the National Catholic Welfare 
Council as bearing upon the inherent probability of such a charge. 
That a bill whose only purpose is the saving of life should be 
attacked as "destructive of the family” seems fantastic. Nothing 
so certainly destroys the family as death. This bill is meant to save 
the children of America, America’s mothers, to save to America her 
children. 
(Telegrams indorsing the Shepp ard-T own er bill were submitted 
from the following persons : Mrs. Fran Sanderson, president Maryland 
State Federation of Women’s Clubs; Mrs. T. Parkin Scott, president 
Maryland Division, Service Star Legion War Mothers of America; 
M. Lem Ellicott, president Maryland League of Women Voters; 
Hortense Powdermaker, secretary Baltimore Women’s Trade Union 
League; Mary R. Halsup, president Woman’s Christian Temperance 
Union of Maryland; Mrs. M. A. Toy, national president Service Star 
Legion; Bessie C. Cone, president Federation of Jewish Women’s 
Organizations, and Mrs. Edward Shoemaker, president, and Mrs. 
Benjamin W. Corkran, chairman, of the legislative committee, 
Women’s Civic League.)