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GENTLEMEN OF THE LEGISLATURE, STUDY THIS PICTURE
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:L;u: > C:; Sl N this cartoon Mr. McCay calls
B}\ R T the attention of legislators to
' J B (’\2 the shame of modern govern-
Q 3\5 ments—base ingratitude to the
i At]| women who bear and rear their
children.
It is a picture that is worth
the careful study of every lawmaker. Twenty
one States, it is true, have made provision for
. widowed mothers—have assisted them to provide
for their young children in their own homes.
But in most cases the laws for relief of mothers
could be greatly improved. IN NEW YORK,
THE RICHEST AND MOST POPULOUS STATE
IN THE UNION, NO PROVISION WHATEVER
1S MADE FOR MOTHERS.
Left a widow by the death of a husband who
could not possibly make more than a living for his
family during his lifetime, the mother is often
. turned out into the street with her children. The
charity societies cannot provide ifor half of her
kind. Her only resource is to send hLer children
to State orphan asylums, and apply herself for
entrance to the poorhouse.
That means that the children will be brought
up with hundreds of others in the cold mechani
cal fashion of a State institution, if indeed they
survive at all. It means that the mother who
gave them Lirth, who planned to make them use
ful citizens, who had a mother’s pride in their
careers, will be sent to some desolate, far away
corner of the country, to earn a bare existence at
such work as her feeble strength enables her to do.
IT MEANS THAT A HOME, WHICH MIGHT
HAVE CONTRIBUTED MUCH TO THE WEL
. FARE OF THE COUNTRY AND ITS CITIZENS,
WILL BE BROKEN UP, and that the priceless
teachings of a mother to. her children will be
denied an important part of the future citizens
of the country.
s& & .
' Twenty years ago no State government felt
called upon to do anything for the widow and
the orphan beyond giving them places in asylums,
often badly managed, and always the worst pos
sible substitute for a real home.
In that day the mother was forced to send her
. children out to find what work they could in order
. to help support themselves. Her slim earnings
were never sufficient to feed and clothe them.
Child slavers, taking advantage of the helpless
' ness of mother and childrer, took them into fac
‘tories, and broke down their strength in a few
years, turning them out cripples and derelicts.
Gradually. in some of the States, the people
The Widowed Mother Who Has Borne Children for the State Is Too Often
Permitted to Starve With Her Children in the Streets Because of the Indifference
and Ignorance of the Men Who Make the Laws. Twenty-one States Provide for
Widowed Mothers in Some Fashion or Other, But None of Them Makes Adequate
Provision for the Noble Women Who, Because of the Death of Their Husbands,
Have Been Reduced to Poverty. New York, the Richest and Most Populous State
in the Union, Makes No Provision for Widowed Mothers at All. Yet the Future
of the City, the State and the Nation Depends on the Care That Is Given to the
Upbringing of Children and the Security and Comfort of the Mother Who Trains
Them to Become Citizens.
learned that this was not only inhumane, but bad
economy.
The loss of the home made itself felt.
The State was put to just as much expense in
maintaining so-called charitable institutions as it
would have incurred in keeping mothers and chil
dren together.
Its loss in good citizenship was incalculable.
The workhouses and asylums overflowed
Worse still, the prisons overflowed. Children
without a mother's care do not, as a rule, grow up
right. Indigency increased, and indigency al
ways leads to crime.
Where families were maintained as families, it
was found that the State immediately benefited.
Paying the debt of the people to the mother
was found to be a good investment. One State
profited by the example of another, until now
twenty-one of them have laws under which a
mother is given some return for the great work
she has done for the State in giving birth to chil
dren.
e & @&
The States now having laws for the relief of
widowed mothers are:
Colorado, California, Idaho, Illinois, lowa,
Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri,
Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey,
Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South
Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin.
In every one of these conditions have materially
improved since the passage of such laws.
In most cases mothers with orphaned children
are permitted to keep their sons and daughters at
home—being given a sufficient allowance to main
tain them, after a fashion.
Because the people have not fully awakened tp
the tremendous importance of a mother’s influ
ence, this allowance is seldom as large as it should
be.
But a beginning has been made. And gradu
ally, as education brings about enlightenment, bet
« ter and better provision will be made, until at
last the widowed mother will be enabled to stay
at home and look after her children through the
day, without having to go to the task of support
ing them by her own labor.
The New York American has introduced into
the State Legislature of New York a bill which
empowers the county and city authorities to save
its mothers from the poorhouses, and its children
from orphan asylums.
The bill embodies the best features of the bills
of other States. Its passage, which is assured,
will place New York at least on a par with her
Eastern and Western sisters in commonsense legis
lation for the benefit of the whole community.
The ablest and wisest members of the Legisla
ture are behind the bill. The Legislature will have
the benefit during its discussion of the advice and
counsel of leaders in the mothers’ relief move
ment in all the progressive States.
And if improvements can be found, they will be
incorporated.
The work is a great and important one, and
needs the support of every good citizen, not only
of New York, but of the whole United States, for
the entire nation is dependent on the character
of its citizens, and indebted to the mothers who
give it good citizens.
g 8 ®
The picture Mr. McCay has presented io the at
tention of the Legislature is not an exaggeration.
During the intensely cold weather of late
December and early January, many mothers and
€ditorial and @ity Life Section of Kearst's Sunday American, Htlanta, January 10, 1915.
their children were evicted in New York Oity and
in other northern cities—turned out into the
biting cold because of their failure to pay a few
weeks’ rent.
The picture is a fine commentary on the present
state of civilization.
Here is a woman who has given the best years
of her life to the bearing of children. Her hus
band, hard-working and honest though he was,
could earn only enough to keep a roof over the
heads of his family, provide them with food and
clothing, and send them to school.
Saving was out of the question. With his wages,
life insurance was out of the question,
When he fell ill and died there was nothing left.
In such cases it is always the neighbors, poor
themselves, who do the immediate relief work.
Charity organizations usually have their hands
full. It takes long negotiations to gain admittance
to State institutions.
Here is a woman who needs food and shelter
The neighbors, at tremendous sacrifice, take her
in.
But soon they must find her other means of
support or take the bread out of the mouths of
their own children and risk the very roof they
live under. :
¢ & ¢
The mother has lived wisely and carefully. She
has made every possible sacrifice to keep her
children alive and well. She has sought to inspire
them with high ideals, to make them the kind of
citizens she would like to call her sons.
Every effort she has put forth at the prompt.
ings of her mother instinct has been an effort in
the interests of the whole people.
The task she has begun, if finished, will give
T E—— tritain Rights Resetved
ght. 19 » '
to the commonwealth a family of useful, upright
men and women whose labor and thought will
benefit the entire community.
But death has interrupted her labors. She has
no skill in any craft. She has no sirength for
manual labor. Her earnings as a floor scrubber or
a washerwoman would not begin to keep her fam
ily in food.
What is she to do?
And the great State of New York answers that
she is to send the babies about whose future she
has dreamed, and whom she loves as onmly a
mother can love, to some far away asylum—to
place them in the hands of people whose only in
terest is drawing their own salary, and to say
goodby to them forever.
As for her—though she has served the State bet
ter than any man can serve it, she can, if she is
lucky, gain admittance to the county poorhouse.
A beautiful reward for the highest service that
human being can give to the world!
¢ & ¢
What will be done by the New York Legislature
this year will be done, we believe, within ten years
by every State in the Union. o
The laws now on the statute books of the more
progressive States will De bettered.
The people will come to recognize the worth of
the mother and the home.
There is more than sentiment in the movement
to pay the debt of the citizen to the mother, al
though there is and should be a great deal of sen
timent in it.
It is a matter of economy, of self-interest on the
part of the people who thus provide out of their
earnings for the woman who has no earnings and
can find no means of having any.
Men grow up as they are directed at their moth
er’'s knee. The greatest men owe their greatness
to their mothers.
Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, Grant, Lee have
all acknowledged their debt to their mothers.
And every man who sits in the Legislature, who
takes part in the affairs of the community, who
builds a business, or works to uplift his fellow
men, must acknowledge the same debt,
s & &
Gentlemen of the Legislatures of the States of
the Union, study this picture. Ask yourselves how
you would like to see YOUR mother at the mercy
of a bleak Winter wind, or to know that when you
die the mother of your children will be thus de
serted by humanity.
Make such things forever impossible. You are
charged with the business of government. Do not
let such a disgrace as this endure in any govern
ment of which you are a part. w,h